What Ever Part Two - Tenth Doctor
by SciFiFanForever
Summary: The Tenth Doctor has defeated the Master and the Time Lords and sent them back into the Time Lock. Now he hears four knocks on the door of the cubicle. What will he do? Will Rose be able to help him like she did at Canary Wharf?
1. The Eleventh Hour

**Chapter 6**

 **The Eleventh Hour**

Knock, knock, knock, knock. 'They gone, then? Yeah, good-o. If you could let me out?' Wilf said from inside the glass cubicle.

'Yeah,' the Doctor said sadly.

'Only, this thing seems to be making a bit of a noise.'

'Oh my God!' Rose gasped in disbelief. 'It was him! It was him all along. He wasn't just leading you to the prophecy, he was the prophecy.'

The Doctor looked down at her. 'The Master left the Nuclear Bolt running. It's gone into overload.'

'And that's bad, is it?' Wilf asked.

'No, because all the excess radiation gets vented inside there. Vinvocci glass contains it. All five hundred thousand rads, about to flood that thing.'

'Oh. Well, you'd better let me out, then.'

'Except it's gone critical. Touch one control and it floods. Even this would set it off,' he said, holding up his sonic screwdriver.

'But we can't leave him in there. We've got to do so somethin'.' Rose said.

Wilf realised what he'd done. This was his time to go. 'I'm sorry.'

'Sure,' the Doctor replied.

'Don't worry,' Rose said. 'We'll think of somethin', we'll get you out.'

'Look, just leave me.'

'Okay, right then, I will,' the Doctor said.

'What?' Rose asked incredulously. 'Over my dead body!'

'No, mine!' the Doctor shot back. 'Because you had to go in there, didn't you? You had to go and get stuck, oh yes. Because that's who you are, Wilfred. You were always this. Waiting for me all this time.'

'No really, just leave me. I'm an old man, Doctor. I've had my time.'

'Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important. But me? I could do so much more. So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. And it's not fair!'

'Oh Love, don't,' Rose said, stroking his cheek before kissing his lips and hugging him.

'Oh. Oh. I've lived too long,' he declared. He stiffened up and reached for the empty cubicle door.

'DON'T YOU DARE!' Rose shouted as she forced herself between him and the door.

'No. No, no, please, please don't. No, don't! Please don't! Please!' Wilf pleaded.

'Look, there must be another way,' Rose told him. 'C'mon, use that brilliant, superior intellect ya keep boastin' about. Remember Torchwood Tower and how I improvised a safety line?'

'Yes . . . Right . . . nice knickers if I remember correctly. We need to make a remote button pusher, so that when we close the door, something pushes the button.' He ran his fingers through his hair as he looked around the room. He only had a few minutes before the Nuclear Bolt would automatically vent through Wilf's cubicle.

'Mousetrap!' Rose exclaimed.

'Eh?' the Doctor asked. 'I don't see any mousetraps around here.'

'Oh I get it,' Wilf said. 'The board game Mousetrap. We used to play it with Donna when she was a nipper. Do you think you can do it in time?'

'What's Mousetrap?' the Doctor asked.

Rose grinned at him and started talking quickly. 'You build this contraption so that when you turn a wheel a boot kicks a ball down some zig-zagging stairs and gutterin'. It knocks a hand that causes a bowlin' ball to drop in a bath and then onto a seesaw which catapults a man into a washtub which drops the cage onto the mouse.' She drew in a breath. 'You'd love it.'

'Brilliant!' he said, identifying objects in the room. Within seconds, he'd got a design in his head. 'Grab that candelabra by the door,' he instructed. He went over to the chairs where she and Wilf had been tied up and grabbed the rope. He picked up a discarded security guard's helmet, and Wilf's revolver.

Rose hurried back with the candelabra, and he put it in the cubicle next to the control desk so that one of the four arms was directly over the red button. He then took the helmet and fastened the chinstrap, dropping the revolver inside to add weight.

Rose had measured a length of rope that she tied to the handle of the door. The Doctor took the other end and tied it to the chinstrap. He hooked the rope over the candelabra and checked that the helmet was hanging directly over the red button.

'Get ready Wilfred,' he said to the old soldier, and Wilf leaned against the door. 'One, two, three!'

The Doctor slammed the door shut, which lowered the weighted helmet down onto the red button. Rose caught Wilf as he stumbled out of his cubicle. The empty cubicle was flooded with a red glow as radiation was vented through it.

'You did it!' Rose cried as she hugged Wilf around his neck.

'Ooh, I say gal. Steady on,' Wilf said with a chuckle.

'Hah! It worked. Not as extravagant or elaborate as Mousetrap, but every bit as effective,' the Doctor said with a satisfied grin.

'Here, here,' cheered Wilf.

Rose grabbed the Doctor's lapels and pulled him into a passionate kiss. 'Thank you. I knew you could do it.'

He returned the kiss. 'I couldn't have done it without your idea . . . What a team.'

'So is that it then Doctor? Have they gone for good?'

'Yep. They're back inside the time lock, safe and sound.' He put his arm around his wife's shoulders. 'C'mon, let's go and celebrate Christmas.'

Wilf stood to attention in front of them and saluted. 'Sir . . . Ma'am. I know we've missed Christmas day, and I know it's not your way to have a fuss made of you, or tributes paid for what you've done. But it would be a privilege and an honour if you would celebrate a late Christmas with us.'

Rose looked up at the Doctor, and he looked down at her. They both smiled and looked at Wilf. 'Wilfred Mott, we would be delighted to spend Christmas with you, late or otherwise.' He held his hand out and Wilf shook it.

They made their way through the mansion to the outside and through the courtyard to the stables.

'Do you want to do the honours?' the Doctor asked, handing Rose the key fob.

She gave him her tongue through her teeth smile and pressed the button. They heard the familiar wheeze of the TARDIS as it materialised back into view.

'Oh you're a sight for sore eyes,' Rose said, fondly stroking the wooden exterior. She was about to push the door open, when it flew open on its own.

'Oh thank God,' Donna said. 'You're back, and you're you.'

'Hello Sweetheart,' Wilf said, accepting a hug from her.

They all entered the TARDIS and the Doctor shut the door. He followed them up the ramp as Donna explained to Wilf.

'Oh Gramps. We were so worried when you answered the phone an' I couldn't hear ya. We'd been watchin' the news, when everyone's face went all blurry and turned into a blonde nutter.'

'Nah. The Doctor protected us and sent them packing. He was brilliant, as usual,' Wilf told her.

'You're tellin' me,' Rose said with a broad smile.

The Doctor had a smug look on his battered face as he started the Time Rotor.

'Blimey! Skinny boy there looks like he's been in the wars,' Donna said, giving him a worried look.

'Nothing a few nanogenes can't fix,' he told her. 'I'll just nip to the Sickbay.'

'Right. You lot go through to the livin' room, and I'll make us all a cuppa,' Donna said.

'How's Andrea been?' Rose asked.

'Oh she's a little angel. I gave her her feeds, and had lots of cuddles, and Shaun even changed her nappies. That bodes well for the future,' Donna said with a cheeky smile.

After a visit to the Sickbay, and a cracking cup of tea, the Doctor landed the TARDIS across the road from the Noble's house. The passengers started to make their way down the ramp, when the Doctor hurried past them.

'Wait a minute, there's something I need to do first.'

'Whatcha up to?' Rose asked him.

'You'll see,' he replied as he reached above the door and pulled a lever. There was a "pfutt" sound, and he started to count to ten. 'There we are,' he said with a smug grin as he opened the door for them.

'Have you just done what I think ya've done?' Rose said with a big smile.

'Oh, it's snowin',' Wilf said from outside.

Sylvia had heard the TARDIS land, and had run to the front door to see her family emerge from the TARDIS, along with Rose, Andrea and the Doctor.

'Oh, she's smiling,' the Doctor said with a grimace. 'As if today wasn't bad enough.'

Rose giggled. 'Behave yourself. Remember it's the season of goodwill. Peace to all men . . . and Sylvia Noble in your case.'

'Thank God you're all safe,' Sylvia said, hugging each of her family in turn. 'I've been worried sick all night. And there was this madman laughing in my head. He was pure evil. Some of the thoughts he had running through his head made Charles Manson look like a boy scout.'

'Well, that's all done now Sweetheart, so how about the Christmas dinner that we missed yesterday?' Wilf said.

'You mean celebrate Christmas a day late?' Sylvia asked with a frown.

'Well, there are eleven of them left,' the Doctor told her with his eyebrows raised in expectation.

'He's got a point,' Shaun said. 'It's two turtle doves today.'

'Oh yeah,' Rose said. 'They were really into their birds in the old days, weren't they?'

'I know one bird they don't mention,' Donna said. 'The one that's waitin' to be heated an' eaten inside. Come on Mum, let's go an' prepare a turkey dinner.'

* * *

'One, two, three, four, five,' the Doctor counted as he moved his mouse over the board. 'Ooh, ooh. I get to turn the wheel,' he said excitedly and turned the little plastic handle. The stop sign moved back and then snapped forwards, hitting the suspended boot which kicked the bucket which held the small metal ball.

Both the Doctor and his daughter on his lap, watched in fascinated anticipation as the ball zigzagged down the little rickety staircase. Rose had a broad smile on her face as she watched their faces.

The metal ball wound its way down the guttering to hit the plastic pole at the bottom. Andrea gave a little chuckle, and her father had a little giggle. As one, their eyes shot up to the "helping hand", as it pushed the plastic bowling ball down into the bath, where it disappeared from view.

It dropped out of the bottom of the bath, and Andrea chuckled again. It hit the see saw below and catapulted the little man through the air and into the wash tub.

'Hah!' The Doctor exclaimed, and Andrea squealed with delight as the little plastic cage wobbled its way down the ratcheted pole to trap Donna's mouse.

'Brilliant!' The Doctor said with joy. 'Top banana. Absolute genius, I can't believe I missed this one,' he said, referring to the game itself.

'Told ya you'd like it,' Rose said as she and everyone else laughed with him.

They finished the game, and spent the rest of the evening and night, watching Christmas specials on the television, and chatting about anything and everything. It was the early hours of the morning, when the Doctor stood up and helped Rose to her feet.

'Well, I think it's time we should be going now,' he said to his hosts.

'Right' Wilf said, climbing to his feet. He hugged Rose, and she kissed him on the cheek. He kissed his fingers, and gently stroked the sleeping Andrea's forehead. 'God bless little one.'

He pulled the Doctor into a hug and patted his back. 'You take care now, you hear? Of yourself and your family.'

'Don't worry, I will,' he replied.

Donna and Shaun exchanged hugs and kisses. 'You'll let me know the date of the weddin'?' Rose asked her.

'Yeah. I'll text ya,' Donna replied.

'Well, Mrs. Noble. Thank you for inviting us into your home to celebrate the second day of Christmas with you,' the Doctor said formally, shaking Sylvia's hand.

'Please, call me Sylvia, and it's been a pleasure. I've got to admit that when I first met you, I thought you were a dangerous and disruptive influence on my daughter and father,' she told him. 'And I was right! But having spent the day with you and your family, I can see you are a caring and loving husband and father. And in my book, that's worth a lot.'

'Thank you Sylvia . . . Merry Christmas.'

Rose came and gave her a one armed hug, being careful not to squash Andrea. 'Thank you Sylvia. That's the first proper family Christmas we've had since my Mum . . . sort of emigrated.'

'Oh, it was my pleasure dear, and that daughter of yours is such a cutie. You must be very proud,'

'Yes, we are,' Rose said, looking down at her sleeping daughter with a warm smile. She joined her husband, and they stepped out of the front door, crunching through the two inches of snow that had fallen.

They entered the TARDIS, and it slowly disappeared to the grating, wheezing sound of time and space warping out of shape. In the weeks and months that followed, meteorologists scratched their heads as to how a near circular patch of snow could have fallen in a half mile radius around an ordinary street in Chiswick.

And for once, Donna Noble hadn't missed a weird Christmas event. This time, she was right in the middle of it . . . literally. In the past, she'd missed the space ship made of rock, hanging over London. She'd missed the Christmas Star over London, because she was under the Thames with the Doctor and Rose. And she'd missed the replica of the Titanic just missing Buckingham Palace.

The conspiracy websites were buzzing with theories about the Chiswick snow circle, as though it were a new version of a crop circle. Donna would sit in the pub and tell the customers it was an alien. She'd seen him. The people in the pub would suddenly be interested, and listen with interest to what she had seen.

And then she would tell them that the alien wore a brown pinstriped suit and his space ship was a blue wooden box. At that point, people would return to their own conversations, thinking that she had probably had a little too much to drink.

* * *

Knock, knock, knock, knock. 'Hello, is anyone at home?' the Doctor called through the letterbox.

'Four knocks? That's riskin' it a bit ain't it?' Rose said.

He gave her a big grin. 'Nah. It's my lucky knock now.'

'Fancy bein' back here in Leadworth,' Rose said, looking around the messy front garden of the large Edwardian vicarage, and along the path leading to the quiet terraced street beyond the stone wall where the TARDIS was parked. 'Is it just a coincidence, or is it one of those timey-wimey things?'

'Hmmm. Good question,' he replied. 'Of course, there's timey-wimey . . . ness in Leadworth because of our wedding,' he said, waving his hands around to indicate the whole village. 'That's why I didn't spot the anomaly straight away. It was hiding in the background, er . . .'

'timey-wimeyness?' Rose finished for him.

They heard footsteps coming down the hallway, and a Scottish woman calling out. 'Yes, there is someone home. I'm coming.'

The door opened,and they saw a young woman police officer in a micro-skirted police uniform. 'Yes?' she said in a no nonsense tone of voice.

The Doctor and Rose were taken by surprise. 'Oh, er, has somebody already reported it then?'

'Reported what,' the WPC said with a frown. 'Look, I'm a bit busy at the moment. I've, er, got a job on.'

'Yes, of course you have,' the Doctor said. 'Investigating a report of an unusual occurrence in a big old house.'

The WPC looked surprised. 'How did you know about that?'

Rose looked at the woman's uniform, and focussed on the particularly short skirt. 'Doctor . . . I don't think she's . . .'

But the Doctor had engaged his mouth into overdrive. 'Have you found anything? A strange light? Voices? A crack in a wall somewhere?'

The WPC now looked nervous and suspicious. 'Who are you people?'

'Oh, sorry,' the Doctor said, taking out his psychic paper. 'John and Rose Smith. CSI.'

The WPC looked at the paper in the wallet. 'CSI? And who's she?' she said, nodding at their six month old daughter in her pushchair. 'A sniffer kid?'

Rose snorted a laugh. 'Sniffer kid! Oh that was good. I like her. You're gonna have to come up with a new cover story now we've got Andrea.'

'So who are you, really? Because you're not CSI,' the WPC said with her hands on her hips.

'And you're not a police officer,' Rose said. 'Not in a skirt that short.'

'What?' the Doctor said in surprise. 'She's not?'

Rose rolled her eyes and smiled at the young woman. 'He's the Doctor, I'm Rose, this is our daughter Andrea, and you have got a serious problem with this house.'

The Doctor had recovered from his surprise. 'You asked us how we knew about some unusual occurrences when we mentioned them. Do you want to tell us about them? We can help.'

The young woman sighed, and her shoulders sagged. She removed her hat, and a shock of red hair fell around her shoulders. 'I'm Amy, Amy Pond. I live here . . . You'd better come in.'

'Thank you,' the Doctor said. 'Nice to meet you Amy Pond.'

'So why the police uniform?' Rose asked conversationally as she lifted Andrea out of the pushchair.

Amy blushed slightly. 'Well, when I said I had a job on, I have. I'm a kissogram. Got a 21st birthday party later . . . I'm the surprise guest.'

'Oh, right,' the Doctor said, and then looked at his Wife. 'What's a kissogram?'

Amy answered. 'I go to parties and I kiss people . . . With outfits . . . It's a laugh.'

He raised his eyebrows and grinned. 'We'd better get a move on then. Wouldn't want to disappoint the birthday boy, would we?'

Amy led them up the stairs to her bedroom, where she quickly closed the wardrobe door as the Doctor and Rose followed her in. Rose could see some white, lace material sticking out of the wardrobe door, and presumed it was one of her kissogram costumes.

She showed them a "W" shaped crack in the plaster of the wall, about three to four feet long.

'You've had some cowboys in here,' the Doctor said, referring to the standard of plastering. 'Not actual cowboys, though that can happen.' He took a large, "Sherlock Holmes" magnifying glass out of his pocket and inspected the crack. 'This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it.' He turned to face Rose and Amy. 'So here's a thing. Where's the draught coming from?'

Rose leaned past him and put her hand to the crack. She could feel a gentle current of air coming from the cracked plaster. 'Oh yeah.' She turned and smiled at Amy. 'I told you he was good.'

He took out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning. 'Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey . . . You know what the crack is?'

'What?' Rose and Amy asked together.

'It's a crack,' he told them with a cheeky grin. 'But I'll tell you something funny. If you knocked this wall down, the crack would stay put, because the crack isn't in the wall.'

'Oh my God!' Rose exclaimed.

Amy frowned in confusion. 'Where is it then?'

'Everywhere. In everything . . . It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together right here in the wall of your bedroom. Sometimes, can you hear? . . .'

'A voice. Yes!' Amy said, and the room was filled with a vague growling. The Doctor took out his stethoscope and listened to the crack.

[' **Prisoner Zero has escaped** ,'] a gruff voice announced.

'Prisoner Zero?' a puzzled Doctor said.

'Who's Prisoner Zero?' Rose asked him.

'Prisoner Zero has escaped. That's what I hear,' Amy told them. 'What does it mean?'

[' **Prisoner Zero has escaped**.']

'It means that on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner,' the Doctor said. 'And you know what that means?'

'What?' Amy asked.

'She needs a better wall?' Rose joked.

The Doctor flashed her a grin. 'Yeah. Now, the only way to close the breach is to open it all the way. The forces will invert and it'll snap itself shut . . . Or . . .'

'What?' Amy asked.

'You know in those scary films, when the hero tells his female sidekick that everything's going to be fine. And you know they're lying to make them feel better?' the Doctor explained.

'Yes,' Amy agreed.

The Doctor looked at her seriously. 'Everything's going to be fine.'

'Uh-oh,' Rose said. 'I'll just take Andrea outside for a minute then.'

'Hang on Rose. I'm coming with you,' Amy said, and followed her out of the room, where they turned and peeped around the edge of the doorway.

'Oh, now she decides to stay out of the way,' he said sarcastically. 'If I'd told you to stay downstairs, you'd be standing right behind me.'

Rose rolled her eyes. 'Look, just get on with it.'

'Is he always like this?' Amy asked her in a whisper.

Rose laughed. 'You have no idea.'

The Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the crack and pressed the button. The crack widened and flooded the bedroom with a bright, white light.

The gruff voice became louder and clearer. ' **Prisoner Zero has escaped**. **Prisoner Zero has escaped**.'

'Hello?' the Doctor called out. 'Hello?'

Suddenly, a giant blue eye appeared in the gap and looked at him.

'What's that?' Amy asked.

'Doctor? Is everythin' all right?' Rose enquired, just as a bolt of light hit the Doctor, causing him to double over onto the bed. The crack closed again, and disappeared.

Rose ran in and sat on the bed beside him. 'Are you okay? What happened?'

The Doctor put a reassuring arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a kiss. 'There, you see? Told you it would close. Good as new.' he kissed his daughter on her head.

'What's that thing?' Amy asked as she entered the room. 'Was that Prisoner Zero?'

'No. I think that was Prisoner Zero's guard. Whatever it was, it sent me a message,' he said taking out the black wallet.

'What, on your I.D card?' Amy asked.

'Psychic paper. Takes a lovely little message.' He flipped it open and read the message. 'Prisoner Zero has escaped. But why tell us? Unless . . .'

Rose knew that tone of voice. 'What? Unless what?'

'Unless Prisoner Zero escaped through here. But he couldn't have. We'd know.'

They went back out onto the landing where the stairs went up. There was a door across the way, one on the same wall in the far corner, and two at the far end where the staircase went down again.

The Doctor looked around the landing. 'There's something I'm missing. In the corner of my eye.' He took Andrea off Rose and walked along the landing. 'What we need, is a fresh pair of eyes.'

He turned slowly on the spot, watching his daughter as he did. He then turned back the other way, and grinned.

'Did you see?' he asked the women.

'See what?' Rose asked.

He started turning again. 'Show Daddy, Sweetheart. What do you see?'

As he turned, Andrea's attention focussed on the end of the hallway, and her head swivelled to stay focussed on a particular part of the wall at the end. She lifted her arm and pointed at the wall.

'Ooh, that's spooky,' Amy said. 'What's she pointing at?'

'She's pointing at something that is being deliberately hidden with a perception filter. Except that under two's perceive the world differently to everyone else. They have very few preconceived ideas of what they should see . . . plus she's got her dad's brilliant brain.' He kissed her on the cheek, and she hugged him around the neck.

'How many rooms?' he asked them.

'I'm sorry, what?' Amy asked in confusion.

'On this floor . . . How many rooms on this floor? Count them for me now.'

'Why?'

The Doctor looked at her with his intense, ancient eyes. 'Because it will change your life.'

Amy rolled her eyes and sighed at the pointless exercise. 'Five. One, two, three, four, five.'

'Six,' the Doctor finished for her.

'Six?' she asked, as though he was obviously wrong.

'Oh my God!' Rose said, seeing a door at the end of the hallway that she hadn't seen before.

'Look,' he told Amy.

'Look where?'

'Exactly where you don't want to look. Where you never want to look. The corner of your eye. Look behind you.'

Amy turned and looked at the end of the hallway. 'That's . . . that is not possible. How's that possible?'

'Like I said, there's a perception filter all round the door. Should've seen it.'

'But that's a whole room. That's a whole room I've never even noticed,' Amy said.

'The filter stops you noticing. Something came a while ago to hide . . . its still hiding.'

'Prisoner Zero!' Rose said.

'Will that door hold it?' Amy asked.

'Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. It's an interdimensional multiform from outer space. They're all terrified of wood,' the Doctor said sarcastically.

'Oi!' Rose chided. 'She was only askin'.'

Around the edges of the wooden door, which interdimensional multiforms from outer space apparently were terrified of, a bright light could be seen.

'What's that? What's it doing?' Amy asked.

'I don't know. Getting dressed?' he suggested.

The door fell down to reveal a workman in overalls and tool belt, with a black dog. The Doctor handed Andrea back to Rose, and stood between them and the man with his dog.

'But it's just . . .' Amy was about to tell them it was a man called Barney, but the Doctor interrupted.

'No, it isn't. Look at the faces.'

The man barked. 'What? I'm sorry, but what?' Amy said.

'It's all one creature,' the Doctor told them. 'One creature disguised as two. Clever old multi-form. A bit of a rush job, though. Got the voice a bit muddled, did you? Mind you, where did you get the pattern from? You'd need a psychic link, a live feed. How did you fix that?'

The man in the hallway opened his mouth to reveal long needle-like teeth. 'Stay, boy! Them and me, we're safe. Want to know why? The policewoman sent for back up.'

'I didn't send for back-up!' Amy told him.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. 'I know. That was a clever lie to save our lives. Okay, yeah, no back up. And that's why we're safe. Alone, we're not a threat to you. If we had back up, you'd have to kill us.

' **Attention** , **Prisoner Zero**. **The human residence is surrounded**. **Attention Prisoner Zero**. **The human residence is surrounded**.'

'What's that?' Rose asked, looking around for the source of the voice.

'Well, that would be back up. Okay, one more time. We do have back up and that's definitely why we're safe,' he corrected.

' **Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated**.'

'Well, safe apart from, you know, incineration.'

' **Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated**.'

The Doctor took Rose's hand, and they felt that old familiar tingle. 'Run!' He looked at Amy. 'Run!'

They ran down the stairs, and the Doctor grabbed the pushchair as he went past. ' **Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated**.'

'What's going on? Tell me. Tell me!' Amy called to him as they ran into the garden.

'An alien convict is hiding in your spare room disguised as a man and a dog, and some other aliens are about to incinerate your house. Any questions?'

'Yes!'

'Plenty,' Rose said.

'Me too,' he said, turning back to the door and putting his key in the lock. He rushed inside and hurried up the ramp to the console.

'Er, Doctor,' Rose called to him, and he turned around to see Amy standing there with her mouth open and her eyes wide.

'Ah . . . Right. Where do you want to start?' he asked her as he started the Time Rotor.

'What happened? I went into that wooden box. How did I end up here? Where is here?'

'Here is inside the wooden box,' he told her.

Rose rubbed her upper arm in comfort. 'It's bigger on the inside. All this is inside that small wooden box.'

Amy frowned. 'Is it alien? Like the crack in my wall, the hidden room, and the escaped prisoner?'

'Ooh, she's good,' the Doctor said. 'I like her.'

'Yeah, it's alien,' Rose confirmed. 'It's our space ship . . . It's our home . . . Are you okay?'

Amy gave a weak smile and nodded. 'Yes.' She then frowned and shook her head. 'No . . . Sort of.'

'Well that's a good start,' the Doctor said with a smile. 'Now, let's find where Prisoner Zero has gone, and have a word with the Atraxi.'

He moved around the console, adjusting the controls before shutting down the Time Rotor. He flicked a switch under the monitor. 'Oi, Atraxi! Did you think no one was watching when you threatened to burn down someone's house?'

' **Prisoner Zero has escaped**. **The human residence is surrounded**. **Prisoner Zero must be captured or be incinerated** ,' the gruff voice said.

'Yes, yes, I know all that. But there's no one surrounding the house. You're all in orbit . . . around the planet!'

' **Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated**.'

'The human residence. You mean the planet, don't you? Well. I'm invoking article fifty seven of the Shadow Proclamation. This is a fully established level five planet, and you think you can just come along and burn it? Not on my watch!'

' **Prisoner Zero will vaca** . . .'

The Doctor waved his hand in dismissal. 'Yeah, yeah, you said. Why don't you just pick him up and go?'

' **Prisoner Zero is hidden from us** ,' the gruff voice told him.

'Ah, the disguise. You can't detect him. Okay, here's what's going to happen. One: You will stop threatening to burn the planet, or I'll take your matches off you. Two: I will find Prisoner Zero for you. And "C" . . . sorry. Three: You will take Prisoner Zero and leave this planet and NEVER return. Is that understood?'

Amy leaned close to Rose. 'Blimey. He's good.'

Rose flashed her a smile. 'He's the best!'

' **Your proposal is acceptable**.'

'It had better be, 'cos it's the only one you're getting.' He shut off the comms channel and turned to the ladies. 'Now, we have something that the Atraxi don't.'

'What?' Rose asked.

'Amy Pond and her local knowledge. when you saw Prisoner Zero, you said "but it's just", as though you recognised him.'

'Yeah, it's Barney, the village odd job man.'

'And how is it that he was able to use Barney the odd job man as a template?'

'Well, that's the weird thing. Barney fell off a ladder months ago and had a head injury. My . . . friend Rory has been nursing him in the coma ward.'

'Rory?' Rose asked teasingly. She heard the hesitation in her voice.

'But that's not the best of it,' Amy continued. 'Rory's been taking pictures of his coma patients around the village. I thought he was just Photoshopping them as a joke, but now, I'm not so sure.'

'Right then. That's our destination, the hospital.' He started up the Time Rotor again and set the coordinates for Royal Leadworth Memorial Hospital.

'Right! Hello. Am I late?' he said as he stepped out of the TARDIS. A male nurse looked up in confusion.

'Oh my God we've moved!' Amy said as she stepped out behind the Doctor.

'Amy? What's going on?' the male nurse asked.

'Ahh. I'm guessing you're Rory. Nice to meet you Nurse . . . Williams,' the Doctor said, looking at his badge. 'What's going on is that an alien is using your patient's identities to disguise itself.' He took out his sonic screwdriver. 'But I'm here to tear the mask off, like they do on Scooby Doo.'

'Do you think, Time Lord?' Prisoner Zero asked; who was now appearing as a woman with her two daughters.

'Take the disguise off. They'll find you in a heartbeat. Nobody dies.' The prisoner didn't know he'd made a deal with the Atraxi, and he wanted to keep it that way.

'The Atraxi will kill me this time. If I am to die, let there be fire.' That was why he didn't tell the prisoner about the deal.

'Ho-kay. You came to this world by opening a crack in space and time. Do it again. Just leave.'

'I did not open the crack.'

The Doctor frowned. 'Somebody did.'

'The cracks in the skin of the universe, don't you know where they came from . . ? You don't, do you?' She changed to a little girl's sing-song voice. 'The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know. Does-n't know. Does-n't know!'

She changed back to the adult voice. 'The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.'

'What does that mean?' Rose asked. 'What's the Pandorica?'

'A fairy tale. According to legend, the Pandorica was the prison of a warrior or goblin who dropped out of the sky and tore the world apart until a good wizard tricked it and locked it up.' He took out his sonic screwdriver. 'Nurse Williams, do you have your phone on you?'

'Er, yeah,' he said as he reached into the pocket of his tunic. 'But what's all this got to do with me?'

'You noticed your comatose patients wandering around the village,' he told him, and then addressed Prisoner Zero. 'And this is the good bit. I mean, this is my favourite bit. Do you know what this phone is full of? Pictures of you. Every form you've learned to take, right here.' He sonicked Rory's phone. 'Ooh, and being uploaded right about now.'

A bright light shone through the window. 'Oh! And I think they just found us!'

'Prisoner Zero is located. Prisoner Zero is restrained.'

'Silence, Doctor. Silence will fall,' Prisoner Zero said as it faded away.


	2. The Beast Below

**Chapter 7**

 **The Beast Below**

'Now that's interesting,' the Doctor said, looking at the monitor. 'Twenty ninth century. Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves . . . Whole nations migrating to the stars. isn't that amazing?' he said with a big grin, as he finished fiddling with the controls.

'But hang on, we've been to two hundred thousand. The fourth great and bountiful empire you said, with mega cities and ninety six billion people,' Rose reminded him.

'Well yes. But the first great and bountiful empire fell when the sun went a bit crazy. Once the sun calmed down again, a lot of people went back and started the second great and bountiful empire, while the rest of them continued on to the stars and colonised a million planets.'

'So, which are this lot? The carry on's, or the go back homers?'

He put the ship on the view screen. 'No idea. This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky . . . Star Ship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping,' he said with a smile as he popped the P's. 'Searching the stars for a new home.'

'Shopping?' Rose asked with a gleam in her eyes. 'Can we go shopping?'

'Course we can.'

'Brilliant!' She kissed him on the cheek. 'I'll get Andrea in the buggy.'

'Ooh, that's interesting,' he said as he tapped into the internal CCTV of the city. He could see a young girl in a red cardigan sitting on her own, looking very upset.

Rose finished fastening her daughter into her buggy and straightened up to see that her husband wasn't there any more. She saw the Doctor on the view screen, speaking to the weeping girl in the red cardigan. 'Doctor? Oh he's gone an' sneaked off again . . . No patience, your Daddy,' she jokingly told her daughter with a smile, knowing that when it came to patience, he could wait for a river to turn a crack in the ground into the Grand Canyon.

On the screen, he looked at the camera and gestured for her to join him.

['Welcome to London Market. You are being monitored,'] a voice announced as she stepped out onto a busy street.

Rose looked up at the high galleries and the glass roof showing the star field beyond.

'Look at this place. Isn't it wrong?' the Doctor asked her.

'What's wrong?' Rose asked as he put his arms around her shoulders and walked down the street.

'Come on, use your eyes,' he said encouragingly to his wife.

'Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?'

'Is it the bicycles? Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles.'

'Now, come on, look around you. Actually look.'

'I don't think it's the bicycles,' Rose said on reflection. 'We've seen a horse on a spaceship before now.'

'Oh yeah. Big white one . . . Took a shine to me.' he remembered.

'And, I seem to remember that YOU took a shine to Madame de Pompadour,' she reminded him.

'Oh that . . . I was hoping you'd forgotten about that.'

'You wish.' Rose told him with a lopsided smile. 'Completely forgot about me y'did and rode that horse into the eighteenth century to rescue her, leaving me an' Mickey stranded in the Fifty first.'

'But we weren't married then, and it wasn't like we were dating.'

['London Market is a crime-free zone,'] the voice told them, bringing them back to the point.

The Doctor went back to his narrative. 'Life on a giant star ship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. No horses.' He waggled his eyebrows at Rose. 'But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state.' He then saw a couple sitting at a table. 'Excuse me.' He went over to the table and took a pint glass of water from it.

'What are you doing?' the man asked him as he knelt down and put the glass on the floor. He put on his brainy specs and looked at the glass intently, as though he was expecting it to do something. He seemed satisfied that it wasn't going to do anything and returned it to the table.

'Sorry,' he said to the couple. 'Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish.' He turned his attention back to his wife. 'Where was I?'

'Why did you just do that with the water?' Rose asked him.

'Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track,' he replied with a cheeky smile.

'You're up to somethin',' Rose told him. 'Now, let me see . . . you were usin' the water for somethin', but what? Spirit level? Relative Humidity?'

'This is usually where Holmes says "elementary my dear Watson". Now, police state. Do you see it yet?'

'Ah, I see it,' Rose said quietly, a hint of sadness in her voice. 'It's that girl over there that you were talking to, isn't it?'

The girl in the red cardigan is sitting all alone on some benches in a public area, quietly weeping. The Doctor nodded and went to sit on a bench where he could watch her.

'Children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that.'

'Well, a lot of them . . . I'm still learnin',' Rose said.

'Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state.'

'Where'd she go?' Rose asked when she noticed the bench was empty.

'Deck two oh seven. Apple Sesame block, dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner,' he said smugly.

'Oh hang on. Now you're just showin' off,' Rose told him.

'Oh, er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her,' he explained, handing over a small wallet. 'Took me four goes. Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere.'

'But they're just things,' Rose said.

'They're clean. Everything else here is all battered and filthy. Look at this place. But no one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Look. Ask Mandy, why are people scared of the things in the booths?'

'What are you going to do?'

'What I always do. Stay out of trouble.' Rose rolled her eyes at him. 'Badly,' he added.

* * *

['Doctor?'] Rose thought to her husband as she came around from the knock out gas.

['ROSE! You're awake. Are you okay?']

['Yeah. A bit groggy, but I'm okay.']

['What happened?']

['Well, there was this hole in the road, and I kinda looked in it. There was this tentacle thing that made me jump back, and then a bunch of creepy guys in cloaks gassed me.']

['Ah, I was right then. A police state. So where are you, in a police cell?']

['If it is, it's a better quality cell than we're usually thrown into. There are four television screens, and three buttons on the console labelled Forget, Record and Protest.']

['That's weird. It doesn't sound like a police cell,'] he thought. ['It's as weird as the engine room down here.']

['What's weird about the engine room?']

['It's got no engines in it!']

['Oh, hang on. Somethin's happenin'. There's a man speakin'.']

"Welcome to voting cubicle three thirty C. Please leave this installation as you would wish to find it," the man on the screen said.

['It says I'm in voting cubicle three thirty C,'] she thought to the Doctor.

['I'm on my way up.']

"The United Kingdom recognises the right to know of all its citizens. A presentation concerning the history of Star Ship UK will begin shortly. Your identity is being verified on our electoral roll. Name, Rose Marion Tyler. Age, thirteen hundred and six."

'Cheeky git!' Rose told the man on the screen. ['And it's Lungbarrowmas.']

A while later, the Doctor arrived at the voting booth and found Mandy playing with Andrea in the buggy. He sonicked the door, pushed it open, and on a view screen, he could see Rose talking. ['Listen to me. This isn't a trick. This is for real.']

'Rose?' he called to her

['You've got to find the Doctor.'] Rose turned off the recorded message.

He looked from the screen to Rose. 'What have you done?' He scanned a device in the ceiling. 'Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes.'

Rose went over to the buggy and lifted Andrea into a cuddle. 'But why would I choose to forget?'

Mandy answered the question. 'Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button.'

'Did you?' Rose asked.

'I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to the see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years,' Mandy replied.

'And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action,' the Doctor said.

'How do you not know about this?' Mandy asked him.

'Oh, I'm from out of town,' he said as he fiddled with the controls. 'I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me.'

'It played for me,' Rose told him.

'The difference being the computer doesn't accept me as human.'

'Why not? You look human,' Mandy said.

'No, you look Time Lord. We came first.'

Rose rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. He always had to be superior to humans.

'Hold tight,' he said as he hit the button marked "Protest". 'We're bringing down the government.'

The door to the booth slammed shut, trapping him, Rose, and Andrea inside. The Smiler mannequin in the kiosk became a Scowler and the floor opened up to reveal the long drop.

The Doctor held his wife's hand. 'Say wheee!'

Rose said 'ARGHHH!'

The Doctor dropped down a chute into what appeared to be the organic waste of an abattoir. He could tell it was organic, because it stank. A distant scream got closer as Rose popped out of the chute, landing on her back and clutching her wailing daughter to her chest.

'Argh! High speed air cannon . . . Lousy way to travel,' the Doctor said, shaking organic matter off his hands and taking out his sonic screwdriver.

'All right Sweetheart. Shush now,' Rose said to Andrea as she wiped the gunk off her head and face. 'Where are we?' she asked.

He scanned the chamber. 'Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally, puts us at the heart of the ship. I'd say Lancashire. What's this then, a cave? Can't be a cave.' He checked the readings. 'Looks like a cave.'

Rose rolled onto her knees. 'It's a rubbish dump, and it's mingin'!' She threw a strand of something gooey and wet at the Doctor.

'Yes, but only food refuse. Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship.'

Rose felt the floor of the cave through the detritus. 'The floor's all squidgy, like a water bed.'

'But feeding what, though?'

Rose continued to investigate. 'It's sort of rubbery, feel it . . . Wet and slimy.'

They heard a distance animal noise from further along the cave. 'Er, it's not a floor, it's a . . .' He realised that Rose might not like what the cave actually was. 'So . . .'

'It's a what?' Rose asked him, knowing that he didn't want to tell her.

'The next word is kind of a scary word. You probably want to take a moment, get yourself in a calm place . . . Go omm.'

Rose obliged and made the meditational "Omm" noise, not that it got her into that calm place he mentioned.

'It's a tongue,' her told her.

'A tongue?'

'A tongue . . . A great big tongue.'

Rose realised where a great big tongue would be kept. 'This is a mouth! This whole place is a mouth? We're in a mouth?'

'Yes, yes, yes. But on the plus side, roomy.'

The roominess of the accommodation wasn't foremost on Rose's mind. 'How do we get out?'

The Doctor fielded her question. 'How big is this beastie? It's gorgeous. Blimey, if this is just the mouth, I'd love to see the stomach . . . Though not right now.'

Rose was used to her husband's evasive tactics. 'Doctor, how do we get out?'

She'd rumbled him. 'Okay, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is closed for business.' He indicated a wall of big teeth resembling the Sarcen stones at Stonehenge.

'We could try, though,' Rose said as she tried to stand up.

'No, stop, don't move,' he ordered as the floor shook. 'Too late. It's started.'

'What has?'

'Swallow reflex.' He got to his knees and started to sonic the tongue.

'What are you doin'?'

'I'm vibrating the chemo-receptors.'

'Chemo-what?'

'The eject button.'

Rose frowned. 'How does a mouth have an eject button?'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. 'Think about it!'

Rose did think about it, and then she saw it. A tsunami of vomit was rolling towards them.

He pulled the cuffs on his jacket and tucked his tie inside. Then he hugged his wife and daughter. 'Right, then. This isn't going to be big on dignity. Allons-yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!'

They dropped into a tunnel which thankfully was free from the original detritus.

'There's nothing broken,' he told his wife as he examined her and their daughter. 'There's no sign of concussion and yes . . . you are covered in sick.'

'Where are we?'

'Overspill pipe, at a guess,' he said as he examined a door at the end of the tunnel.

Rose wrinkled her nose. 'Oh, God, it stinks.'

The Doctor sniffed his wife. 'Oh, that's not the pipe.'

'Oh,' she said and sniffed her sleeve. 'Phew! Can we get out?'

'One door, one door switch, one condition. We forget everything we saw. Look familiar?' he said, as he pointed at the Forget button. 'That's the carrot . . . Ooh, here's the stick.'

Two Smiler booths lit up, and the Doctor walked up to them, defiantly cocky with his hands in his pockets. 'There's a creature living in the heart of this ship. What's it doing there?' he asked the Smilers, and their heads revolved to become Frowners.

'No, no, no. That's not going to work on me, so come on. Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works?' he asked the Frowners, and their heads revolved to become Scowlers.

'Oh, stop it. I'm not leaving and I'm not forgetting, and what are you fellahs going to do about it? Stick your tongues out, huh?'

The booths opened and the Smilers stepped out. 'Ah. You're going to do that,' he said as he backed towards the door with Rose and Andrea.

'Doctor?' Rose asked nervously.

A woman in a red cloak came through the now open door, stepped up between the Doctor and Rose, and shot the Smilers.

'Look who it is,' the Doctor said. 'You look a lot better without your mask.'

'You must be Rose,' she said holding out her hand. 'Liz. Liz Ten.'

'Hi,' Rose said, trying to wipe the sick off her hand.

'Yuck,' Liz said, wiping her hand on her cloak. 'Lovely hair, Rose. Shame about the sick. You know Mandy, yeah?' she said as Mandy came through the door. 'She's very brave.'

'How did you find us?' the Doctor asked.

'Stuck my gizmo on you,' she told him, tossing a hand held screen to him. 'Been listening in. Nice moves on the hurl escape. So, what's the big fella doing here?'

'You're over sixteen, you've voted. Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it,' the Doctor told her.

'No. Never forgot, never voted, not technically a British subject,' she replied.

'Then who and what are you, and how do you know me?'

'You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger, M O consistent with higher alien intelligence, hair of an idiot.'

'Oi!' he said, running his fingers through his hair and then realising what was in it at the moment.

'I love his hair,' Rose said.

'I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was,' Liz continued.

'Your family?' he asked.

The Smiler robots started to reboot. 'They're repairing. Doesn't take them long. Let's move,' Liz said.

Liz led them to Sub basement 4 as she explained how she knew who he was. 'The Doctor. Old drinking buddy of Henry Twelve. Tea and scones with Liz Two. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you two, weren't she? Knighted and exiled you on the same day. Lizzy the First was a big fan though by all accounts.

'Liz Ten,' he said as the penny dropped.

'Liz Ten, yeah. Elizabeth the Tenth,' she confirmed. 'And down!' she called out suddenly as she drew her pistol.

The Doctor and Rose ducked as she shot the repaired Smilers again.

'I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule,' she told them.

'You rock more like,' Rose said with a grin.

They passed through a doorway, and Liz closed the door. 'There's a high-speed Vator through there.'

The Doctor was looking through a grating. 'Oh, yeah. There's these things,' Liz said as they saw tentacles beating at the grating. 'Any ideas?'

Rose recognised it. 'Doctor, I saw one of these up top. There was a hole in the road, like it had burst through like a root.'

The Doctor scanned it with his sonic screwdriver. 'Exactly like a root. It's all one creature, the same one we were inside, reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship.'

'What, like an infestation?' Liz asked. 'Someone's helping it. Feeding it. Feeding my subjects to it. Come on. Got to keep moving.' She marched down the corridor with Mandy.

The Doctor was still inspecting the tentacle. 'Doctor?' Rose asked quietly.

'Oh, Rose,' he said sadly. 'We should never have come here.'

Rose suddenly remembered the recording of herself she had watched before her memory was wiped. "Don't let him investigate. Stop him. Do whatever you have to, just please, please get the Doctor off this ship."

Liz led them to her state apartments so they could freshen up and wash the sick off them. The Doctor was stepping between glasses half filled with water.

'Why all the glasses?'

'To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what.'

The Doctor picked up a porcelain mask. 'A queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom?'

'Secrets are being kept from me. I don't have a choice. Ten years I've been at this. My entire reign. And you've achieved more in one afternoon.'

'How old were you when you came to the throne?'

'Forty. Why?'

Rose returned from the bathroom with Andrea. 'What, you're fifty now? No way. Can I have some of your moisturiser?'

'Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps.'

'And you always wear this in public?' the Doctor asked her, holding up the mask.

'Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting.'

'Air-balanced porcelain. Stays on by itself, because it's perfectly sculpted to your face.'

'Yeah? So what?'

'Oh, Liz. So everything,' he said, spotting another secret that was being kept from her.

A division of Winders entered the apartment unannounced. 'What are you doing? How dare you come in here?' Liz said indignantly.

'Ma'am, you have expressed interest in the interior workings of Star Ship UK,' the leader of the group said. 'You will come with us now.'

'Why would I do that?'

The leader's head turned to become a Scowler.

'How can they be Smilers?' Rose asked as she backed away.

'Half Smiler, half human,' the Doctor explained.

'Whatever you creatures are, I am still your queen. On whose authority is this done?'

'The highest authority, Ma'am.'

'I am the highest authority.'

'Yes, ma'am. You must go now, Ma'am.'

'Where?'

'The Tower, Ma'am.'

* * *

'Doctor, where are we?' Rose asked as she looked through a grating, where tentacles were flailing about.

'The lowest point of Star Ship UK. The dungeon.'

'Ma'am,' an officious man in black robes said as he greeted his queen.

'Hawthorne. So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do,' Queen Liz told him.

The Doctor looked around the dungeon. 'There's children down here. What's all that about?'

'Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast. For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky,' Hawthorne told him.

'Yeah, look at us. Torture chamber of the Tower of London. Lucky, lucky, lucky,' the Doctor said sarcastically.

'Well, the beast must have known that if it wanted to eat me, it would have had to eat Andrea as well, 'cos there was no way I was lettin' go of my daughter,' Rose said.

The Doctor smiled lovingly at his wife, before turning back to Hawthorne. 'Except it's not a torture chamber, is it? Well, except it is. Well . . . Except it isn't. Wellll . . . Depends on your point of view.'

They moved over to a circular opening where the top of a pulsating brain could be seen. Giant electrodes were pointing down at it disturbingly.

'What's that?' Queen Liz asked Hawthorne.

The Doctor answered. 'Well, like I say, it depends on your point of view. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fellah's brain, being tortured relentlessly.'

'Or?' Queen Liz asked.

'Or . . . it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Star Ship UK's go faster button.'

Queen Liz frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'Don't you?' the Doctor asked her accusingly. 'Try to. Go on. The spaceship that could never fly. No vibration on deck. This creature, this poor, trapped, terrified creature. It's not infesting you, it's not invading, it's what you have instead of an engine. And this place down here is where you hurt it, where you torture it, day after day, just to keep it moving. Tell you what. Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear.'

He moved to one of the tentacles and took out his sonic screwdriver, using it to sonic a tentacle. The room was suddenly filled with a wailing screech of agony.

Andrea started to cry in sympathy, and Rose was obviously distressed as she imagined the pain that would cause that kind of scream.

'Stop it. Who did this?' Queen Liz demanded.

'We act on instructions from the highest authority,' Hawthorne told her.

'I am the highest authority' Queen Liz informed her minister. 'The creature will be released, now. I said now! Is anyone listening to me?'

The Doctor picked up the queens porcelain disguise. 'Liz . . . Your mask.'

'What about my mask?'

'Look at it. It's old. At least two hundred years old, I'd say.'

'Yeah? It's an antique. So?'

'Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, all right, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred. And it's been a long old reign.'

'Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years.'

'Ten years,' he echoed, walking over to a table. 'And the same ten years, over and over again, always leading you here.' He indicated two buttons on the table in front of a monitor. Forget and Abdicate.

'What have you done?' Queen Liz asked Hawthorne.

'Only what you have ordered,' he replied courteously. 'We work for you, Ma'am. The Winders, the Smilers, all of us.' He switched on the monitor, which played a recorded message from Queen Elizabeth the Tenth.

['If you are watching this. If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower Of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale. Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travellers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart. The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every other nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision.']

Rose looked on aghast. 'I voted for this . . . Why would I do that?'

'Because you knew if we stayed here, I'd be faced with an impossible choice. Humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. And that was wrong. You don't ever decide what I need to know,' he said angrily, wagging a finger at her.

'I don't even remember doin' it,' Rose pleaded.

'You did it. That's what counts.'

'I'm, I'm sorry. I made a mistake? I don't even remember doin' it!'

'Yeah, I know . . . You're only human,' he said angrily.

'Oh, and you've never made a mistake?' Rose asked him. 'Who are you really angry with Love?'

He reached up and held her cheek, rubbing it with his thumb in his old familiar style. 'You're right. I'm sorry. It's not your fault you chose to forget. When you are faced with two evils, does it really matter which one you chose?' He leaned forward and kissed Rose on the lips before moving around to a control console.

'What are you doing?' Queen Liz asked.

'The worst thing I'll ever do. I'm going to pass a massive electrical charge through the Star Whale's brain. Should knock out all its higher functions, leave it a vegetable. The ship will still fly, but the whale won't feel it.'

'What?!' Rose gasped. 'You can't do that! That's . . . that's . . .'

'Inhuman?' the Doctor suggested.

'That'll be like killin' it,' she said.

'Look, three options,' he told her. 'One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name, because I won't be the Doctor any more.'

'There must be something we can do, some other way,' Queen Liz asked him.

'Nobody talk to me,' he said with a scowl. 'Nobody human has anything to say to me today!'

Tears trickled down Rose's cheeks as she hugged her daughter. She saw the oncoming storm in his eyes and knew her husband was angry and upset. It was another one of those days, a day when it wasn't possible to get it right.

She sat with Mandy, and watched the Doctor adjust the controls, as children entered the dungeon.

Mandy stood and rushed forward. 'Timmy! You made it, you're okay. It's me, Mandy.' A tentacle flailed behind Mandy, then gently tapped her on the shoulder. Rose watched in amazement as she stroked it.

Rose started to put all the pieces together. The Doctor had told her to use her eyes, to notice everything. In Queen Liz's message, she had said the children screamed, and the Star Whale had come like a miracle. Hawthorne had told them that it wouldn't eat the children. It came to the dying Earth, a Star Whale, the last of its kind.

'The Doctor said he never interfered with other peoples or planets,' Rose said to herself. 'Unless it's children cryin',' She looked down at her daughter, who was looking back at her with wide, innocent eyes.

'It's the children. They're the key,' she gasped with realisation. 'It won't let the children be harmed!'

'Doctor, stop. Whatever you're doin', stop it now!' Rose called out to him as she grabbed Queen Liz's wrist. 'Sorry, Your Majesty. Going to need a hand.'

Rose dragged Liz to the voting buttons. The Doctor looked up from the console 'Rose, Rose, no! NO!'

She pushed Liz's hand down on the Abdicate button, and the Whale roared. Star Ship UK shook briefly, causing panic on the upper levels.

'Rose, Rose, what have you done?'

'If I'm right, nothin' at all,' she told him. 'Never cruel, never cowardly,' she reminded him.

'We've increased speed,' Hawthorne announced.

'Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot. Gotta help,' Rose said sarcastically.

'It's still here,' Liz observed. 'I don't understand.'

'The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago,' Rose explained. 'It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry.'

Rose looked at her husband as she explained. 'What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.'

Rose thought she could see tears in his eyes as he walked over to her, held her face, and gave her a long, grateful kiss. 'Thank you,' he said when their lips parted.

They made their way back to an upper level observation deck which looked out over the city. Rose handed the Doctor Queen Liz's porcelain mask. 'From Her Majesty. She says there will be no more secrets on Star Ship UK.'

'You could have killed everyone on this ship.'

'You could have killed a Star Whale,' she countered.

'And you saved it. I know, I know.'

'Amazin' though, don't you think? The Star Whale,' she said. 'All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind.'

'But you couldn't have known how it would react.'

'You couldn't,' Rose said accusingly. 'But me, I've seen it before. Very old and very kind, and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?' She gave him her special smile, the one where her tongue poked between her teeth. His face slowly broke into a smile, and he pulled her into a hug.

'Well, come on,' he said, putting his hands in his pockets. 'Time to go.' He led her towards a London market.

'Shouldn't we say goodbye? Won't they wonder where we went?' Rose said.

'For the rest of their lives. Oh, the songs they'll write. Never mind them. Big day tomorrow,' he said.

'Sorry, what?' Rose asked.

'Well, it's always a big day tomorrow. We've got a time machine. I skip the little ones,' he told her as they arrived at the TARDIS.

'Oh . . . right. Yeah, I see what you mean,' she said with a smile.


	3. The Time of Angels

**Chapter 8**

 **The Time of Angels**

The Doctor ambled between the display cases in his usual brown pinstriped suit and long brown coat. Instead of a tie though, he had an open necked denim shirt and white T-shirt underneath.

'Wrong. Wrong. Bit right, mostly wrong. I love museums,' he said as he commented on the labelling of the various exhibits in the glass cases.

'Another asteroid, another museum,' Rose said as she pushed Andrea in her buggy around the cathedral like museum. She was wearing a pink hoodie over a grey T-shirt, with a denim mini skirt and black boots.

'Rose, this isn't any old asteroid. It's the Delerium Archive, the final resting place of the headless monks,' he said with an enthusiastic grin. 'The biggest museum ever.'

'You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for anyway?'

The Doctor continued his inspection. 'Wrong. Very wrong. Ooh, one of mine. Also one of mine.'

'Oh, I see. It's how you keep score,' Rose said with her teasing smile.

The Doctor circled a display case that contained a square box, and rested his arms on top of it as he contemplated the ancient artefact.

Rose rolled her eyes. She felt like she was on a school trip. 'Oh great, an old box.'

'It's from one of the old starliners,' he told her.

'What is it?'

'A Home Box.'

'What's a Home Box?'

'Like a black box on a plane, except it homes.' He gave her his open mouthed smile. 'The Home Box homes in on the home. Anything happens to the ship, the Home Box flies home with all the flight data. Does what it says on the tin, except . . .'

'What?'

The Doctor pointed at the box. 'This one says something different on the tin.'

Rose stood by his shoulder and looked at the exhibit. 'Hang on. Is that Gallifreyan?'

'Old High Gallifreyan,' he told her. 'A bit like the Old English that Will used to write in. The lost language of the Time Lords. There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.'

'What does it say?'

'Have a try, see if you can read it.' The TARDIS didn't translate its own language, so she had to practice what the Doctor had taught her.

'Er, confectionary greeting,' she said uncertainly.

'Ooh, good effort. Try changing the order of the words and extrapolating the meaning.'

'Greeting confectionary?'

'What do you say when you greet someone?'

'Hello.'

'And what does a confectioner make?'

'Sweets . . . Oh, I've got it . . . Hello, sweetie.' She frowned as she remembered that phrase. 'You are kiddin', right? The woman in The Library who died. River Song . . . she said hello sweetie when she met you,' she remembered.

'Yes, she did,' he agreed as he ran his fingers through his sticky up hair. 'So, are you ready?'

Rose frowned. 'Ready for what?'

Rose knew the look on his face, and also knew what was coming next. He took his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and sonicked the display case. An alarm started to wail as he snatched the Home Box.

'Ready to run!' he said and ran down the nave of the cathedral museum towards the TARDIS with the box under his arm. Rose, who was pushing Andrea in the hover buggy, was close behind him, followed by two security staff.

They made it safely into the TARDIS, and the Doctor started the Time Rotor before putting the Home Box on the console.

'I can't believe you just did that!' Rose said. 'In fact, why are we doin' this?' she asked as he tried to access the data in the box.

'Because someone on a spaceship twelve thousand years ago is trying to attract my attention. Let's see if we can get the security playback working.'

He got the Home Box to display the CCTV footage on the console view screen. The playback showed River Song in a glamorous evening gown, looking at the camera over a pair of stylish sunglasses and winking.

'That's not someone,' Rose said. 'That's River Song.'

A man's voice came out of the speaker as they saw River standing at an airlock door. ['The party's over, Doctor Song, yet still you're on board.']

['Sorry, Alistair. I needed to see what was in your vault,'] River told the man. ['Do you all know what's down there? Any of you? Because I'll tell you something. This ship won't reach its destination.']

['Wait till she runs. Don't make it look like an execution,'] the man called Alistair said.

River lifted her arm and talked to her watch. ['Triple seven five, slash three four nine by ten, zero twelve slash acorn . . . Oh, and I could do with an air corridor.']

The Doctor moved around the console and started adjusting the controls.

'What was that? What did she say? Were those coordinates?' Rose asked recognising the format from her limited experience of flying the TARDIS. 'They sounded like coordinates to me.'

The Doctor looked at his wife with pride and grabbed a quick kiss. 'Coordinates,' he confirmed as the Time Rotor pumped up and down.

['Like I said on the dance floor, you might want to find something to hang on to,'] River said saucily on the screen. They watched as she blew a kiss before the airlock opened, sucking her out, backwards.

'Oh my God!' Rose gasped. 'She committed suicide!'

'Whoo!' The Doctor hurried to the doors and opened them, holding his arm out for some reason.

As Rose reached the doors, the woman they had seen on the screen came sailing through the doors, into the Doctor's arms, and onto the floor on top of him.

'River?' the Doctor said in greeting.

'A-hem,' Rose deliberately cleared her throat with her arms crossed and a disapproving look on her face.

River climbed off him without comment and looked out of the doors. 'Follow that ship.'

The Doctor went to the console and started the Time Rotor.

'Why are we followin' that ship?' Rose asked her, but River was too focussed on the console to answer.

'They've gone into warp drive. We're losing them. Stay close,' River said.

'I'm trying.' the Doctor told her.

'Why?' Rose asked again.

'Use the stabilisers,' River said over Rose's question.

'There aren't any stabilisers.'

'The blue switches.'

'Oh, the blue ones don't do anything, they're just blue.'

'Yes, they're blue. Look, they're the blue stabilisers.' She pressed the blue buttons, and the TARDIS stopped shaking. 'See?'

'Yeah. Well, it's just boring now, isn't it?' he sulked. 'They're boring-ers. They're blue . . . boring-ers.'

'Doctor, how come she can fly the TARDIS?' Rose asked.

'You call that flying the TARDIS? Ha!' he replied.

Rose raised an eyebrow. 'Actually, that was pretty good,' she said begrudgingly.

'Okay. I've mapped the probability vectors, done a fold-back on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination, and parked us right along side,' River said with a satisfied smile.

'Parked us?' Rose asked.

'We haven't landed,' the Doctor said.

'Of course we've landed. I just landed her.'

'But . . . it didn't make the noise,' Rose observed.

'What noise?' River asked.

The Doctor gesticulated towards the console. 'You know, the "vrwoorp, vrwoorp".'

'It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on,' River told him.

The Doctor was definitely miffed. 'Yeah, well, it's a brilliant noise.'

'I love that noise,' Rose said.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. 'Come on, Rose. Let's have a look.'

'No, wait. Environment checks,' River called out.

'Oh yes, sorry. Quite right. Environment checks,' he said. He went to the TARDIS door, opened it and looked outside. He looked at River. 'Nice out.'

Rose snorted a laugh as he grinned and winked at her.

River was looking at the view screen. 'We're somewhere in the Garn Belt. There's an atmosphere. Early indications suggest that . . .'

The Doctor interrupted her with a lecturing tone to his voice. 'We're on Alfava Metraxis, the seventh planet of the Dundra System. Oxygen rich atmosphere, all toxins in the soft band, eleven hour day and . . .' He looked outside again. 'Chances of rain later.'

Rose had a satisfied smile on her face as River looked irritated. 'He thinks he's so hot when he does that.'

'How come you can fly the TARDIS?' Rose asked her.

'Oh, I had lessons from the very best,' she replied.

The Doctor had a smug look on his face. 'Well . . . yeah.'

River wiped the smug look off his face. 'It's a shame you were busy that day.' Although Rose found River irritating, she couldn't help but laugh. 'Right then, why did they land here?' she said as she headed for the doors.

'They didn't land,' he said from the jump seat.

'Sorry?' River said, turning back to look at him.

'You should've checked the Home Box . . . It crashed.'

River left the TARDIS and the Doctor closed the door after her before walking back to the console where Rose and Andrea were waiting for him. 'So, how did she do that museum thing?'

'It's a long story and I don't know most of it,' he told her. 'Off we go.'

'What are you doin'?' she asked, hoping they were getting as far away from River as possible.

'Leaving. She's got where she wants to go, let's go where we want to go,' he said as he started to set the coordinates.

'Yes!' Rose whispered with a fist pull.

He started the Time Rotor and put them into the Vortex, and then moved around the console as he made adjustments to the controls. The trim phone started to ring, and he picked it up.

['Leaving so soon Sweetie?'] River said.

He looked at Rose, who was looking suspicious. 'Er, yeah. Things to do. Places to go. You know how it is.'

['Aren't you a teensy bit curious about what I found in the hold?']

Before he could tell her that he wasn't the slightest bit interested, she hung up. He frowned at the phone before putting it down. Who ever she was, she knew how to get his attention.

'So, who was that?' Rose asked, knowing that look on his face.

'Ah, well, um . . . There was this one thing . . . on the playback. Do you remember? She asked them if they knew what was in the hold. She told them the ship wouldn't reach its destination.'

'That was her, wasn't it? You want to know what was in the hold of that ship?'

'Five minutes, I promise. Just a quick look and then we go. Leave her to it. What do you say?' he said giving her his cheekiest smile with his puppy dog eyes.

'What do I say? Don't make promises you can't deliver on is what I say,' she told him, and then looked at the hurt expression on his face. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his lapels, pulling him into a kiss. 'Five minutes. No longer!'

The TARDIS had landed on a rocky beach, in front of a cliff which had an ancient building carved into it. There was a once sleek spaceship, which was now a burning wreck, sticking out of the top of the edifice.

'What caused it to crash? Not me,' River said as they stood beside her.

'Nah, the airlock would've sealed seconds after you blew it,' the Doctor said. 'According to the Home Box, the warp engines had a phase shift. No survivors.'

'A phase shift would have to be sabotage. I did warn them,' River said.

'About what?' Rose asked, but once again, River seemed to ignore her. It was getting very annoying.

River took a futuristic flat screen device out of her purse. 'Well, at least the building was empty. Aplan temple. Unoccupied for centuries.'

River looked over her shoulder at Rose and Andrea and smiled. 'I see you two are still travelling with him then.'

Rose suddenly realised that this River hadn't met her yet, but when she'd seen her in The Library, River had said she never thought she would have the honour to meet Rose Tyler, the woman who saved him from himself. What Rose didn't know, was that River Song was protecting her from knowledge of her own future.

The Doctor on the other hand, was fully aware that this version of River Song hadn't met Rose, and was reluctant to introduce his present wife to his future wife. It had been awkward enough in The Library, and it was all a bit too domestic for him.

['Bear with me on this Love. Spoilers and all that,'] he thought to Rose. 'Er . . . this is Rose and her daughter Andrea.'

River smiled. 'Hello.'

'You do realise that I'm not your taxi service, don't you?' the Doctor said to River in annoyance. 'I'm not going to be there to catch you every time you feel like jumping out of a space ship.'

'And you are so wrong,' River said teasingly.

She scanned the wrecked ship with her tablet device. 'There's one survivor. There's a thing in the belly of that ship that can't ever die.' She looked at Rose. 'Now he's listening.'

River then used the tablet as a communicator. 'You lot in orbit yet? Yeah, I saw it land. I'm at the crash site. Try and home in on my signal.' She held up the tablet and called over to the Doctor. 'Doctor, can you sonic me? I need to boost the signal so we can use it as a beacon.'

He grudgingly took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and sonicked the tablet from a distance.

'Why do you let her do that?' Rose whispered. 'Boss you about like that?'

'Because the sooner whoever is up there gets here, the sooner we can get out of here.'

Rose felt a bit guilty about questioning her husband's motives, and looked down at their daughter in the carry sling and stroked her head. 'Ah, yeah. Fair enough . . . Sorry.'

River had walked back towards them. 'We have a minute. Shall we?'

She took out her TARDIS-style diary that Rose remembered from The Library. 'Where are we up to? Have we done the Bone Meadows?'

'No, he hasn't done the Bone Meadows!' Rose told her sharply.

River looked at her with raised eyebrows, and then turned to the Doctor. 'She's feisty. She acts as though she's your wife.'

'As do you,' he replied, unfazed by her attempt to goad him.

'Touche,' she said. 'Anyway, it's the wrong face for the Bone Meadows.'

At that moment, four small tornadoes kicked up the dust and turned into four soldiers.

'You promised me an army, Doctor Song,' one of the soldiers said.

No, I promised you the equivalent of an army,' River corrected him. 'This is the Doctor.'

The soldier held out his hand. 'Father Octavian, Sir. Bishop, second class. Twenty clerics at my command. The troops are already in the drop ship and landing shortly. Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song explained what we're dealing with?'

River looked at the Doctor. 'Doctor, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?'

* * *

'You said five minutes!' Rose reminded her husband in hushed tones. 'And now you want us to go into a "maze of the dead" to capture a Weepin' Angel.'

'No I don't,' he said defensively. 'I want you and Andrea and to go into the TARDIS and wait for me.'

'Have you gone completely daft? What happened to Shiver and Shake?'

Father Octavian approached with some of his soldiers from the drop ship. 'Is there a problem Doctor?'

'Er, no. Just some domestic issues to be ironed out,' he said with a charming smile.

'Then perhaps I can be of assistance,' Father Octavian said, indicating a female soldier by his side. 'This is Sister Joan, a nun from the Sandhurst Convent. Not only is she a highly trained soldier who has taken an oath to serve and protect, but she is also an experienced child care assistant with a family of her own.'

'You have a family?' Rose said in surprise. 'Aren't nun's supposed to be celibate?'

'Fifty first century church,' the Doctor told her. 'They've moved on.'

Rose's interest was piqued by the nun-soldier. 'So how do you cope, bein' a mum and a soldier.'

'It's hard,' she said with a wistful smile. 'I have a boy, four, and a girl who's two, and I miss them something rotten. But I know they are being well looked after by my sisters back at the convent.'

'So, what do you think Doctor, Rose? Will you agree to Sister Joan looking after your daughter while you help us capture this Lonely Assassin?' Octavian asked them.

The Doctor looked at Rose for her approval. 'What do you think? I'm game if you are.'

Rose knew that they would be able to feel Andrea's thoughts, and send their own thoughts to her if she became upset. 'Okay. I'd better show you where the nursery is in the TARDIS . . . Oh, and you'd better prepare yourself for a bit of a shock,' she warned her, referring to the transdimensional interior.

Outside the Dropship, River was showing the Doctor a book. 'I found this. Definitive work on the Angels. Well, the only one. Written by a madman. It's barely readable, but I've marked a few passages.'

The Doctor riffled through the pages of the book. 'Not bad. Bit slow in the middle. Didn't you hate his girlfriend? No. No, hang on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.' He sniffed the book. 'This book is wrong. What's wrong with this book? It's wrong.'

'It's so strange when you go all baby face. How early is this for you?' River asked the Doctor.

'Very early.'

'So you don't know who I am yet?'

'How do you know who I am?' he asked her. 'I don't always look the same.'

'I've got pictures of all your faces. You never show up in the right order, though. I need the spotter's guide.'

That was what was wrong with the book he realised. 'Pictures. Why aren't there pictures?'

'Doctor?' Rose called from inside the Dropship Module. 'Doctor!'

'This whole book, it's a warning about the Weeping Angels, so why no pictures? Why not show us what to look out for?' he asked.

'There was a bit about images,' River remembered. 'What was that?'

The Doctor flicked through the pages. 'Yes. Hang on. "That which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel",' he read.

'Doctor!' Rose called again more urgently.

River frowned. 'What does that mean? An image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel?'

'DOCTOR! IT'S IN THE ROOM!' they heard Rose shout.

'ROSE!' The Doctor shouted and ran to the Dropship.

'Doctor!'

'Are you all right? What's happening?'

'Doctor? Doctor, it's comin' out of the television,' she told him. 'The Angel is here.'

He sonicked the keypad lock. 'Don't take your eyes off it. Keep looking. It can't move if you're looking.'

'Yeah, I know. I remember Wester Drumlin.'

'What's wrong?' River asked him.

'Deadlocked.'

'There is no deadlock,' she told him.

'Don't blink, Rose. Don't even blink.'

'I know!' she said sharply. She didn't fancy being dumped in the past just yet.

'What are you doing?' River asked.

'Cutting the power. It's using the screen, I'm turning the screen off . . . No good, it's deadlocked the whole system.'

'There's no deadlock,' she told him again.

'There is now.'

'Help me!' Rose called to her husband.

'Can you turn it off?' he asked her.

'Doctor?'

'The screen. Can you turn it off?'

'I tried.'

'Try again, but don't take your eyes off the Angel.'

'I'm not.'

'Each time it moves, it'll move faster. Don't even blink.'

'Will you shut up about the blinkin' and concentrate on gettin' me outta here,' Rose said angrily.

Meanwhile, River was trying to cut through the door with her pistol torch. 'I'm not blinkin'. Have you ever tried not blinkin'?' Rose said, closing one eye at a time as she felt for the remote control.

She tried to switch the screen off. 'It just keeps switchin' it back on.'

'Yeah, it's the Angel,' he told her.

'But it's just a recordin'.'

'No, anything that takes the image of an Angel is an Angel.' He noticed River using her cutting torch. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm trying to cut through. It's not even warm.'

'There is no way in. It's not physically possible.'

Rose called from inside. 'Doctor, is it gonna zap me into the past?'

'If it does, I'll find you. But it's not going to come to that. Just keep looking at it. Don't stop looking.' He ran to get the book and checked on something he had read.

'Rose, not the eyes. Look at the Angel but don't look at the eyes,' he told her.

'Why?'

'What is it?' River asked.

The Doctor read from the book again. "The eyes are not the windows of the soul. They are the doors. Beware what may enter there".

'Doctor, what did you say?' Rose queried.

'Don't look at the eyes!'

'No, about images. What did you say about images?'

River answered. 'Whatever holds the image of an Angel, is an Angel.'

"Hold the image" Rose thought. That was it! 'Okay, hold this,' she said to the Angel. 'One, two, three, four.' She pressed pause on the remote just as the tape loop returned to the start. The image turned to static, and the Doctor and River burst in as the monitor turned off.

The Doctor pulled her into a hug. 'I froze it. There was a sort of blip on the tape and I froze it on the blip. It wasn't the image of an Angel any more. That was good, yeah? It was, wasn't it? That was pretty good.'

'That was amazing,' River said.

He released her from the hug and held her shoulders. 'You okay?'

'I'm fine,' she said with a smile.

'You're brilliant,' River told her.

Rose thought that was praise indeed from this bossy, but capable woman. 'Thanks . . . Yeah, I kind of creamed it, didn't I?'

'So it was here? That was the Angel?' River asked the Doctor.

'That was a projection of the Angel. It's reaching out, getting a good look at us. It's no longer dormant.'

There was an explosion outside as the assault team blew a hole in the wall, and entered the Aplan temple. It was huge inside, with a number of terraces containing Aplan statues. There was gunfire from behind them, and the Doctor, Rose, and River ran back to the main group. A young Cleric had shot up a statue.

'Sorry . . . sorry. I thought . . . I thought it looked at me,' the Cleric confessed.

'We know what the Angel looks like,' Octavian said. 'Is that the Angel?'

'No, sir,' the Cleric said sheepishly.

Octavian gave him a stern look. 'No, sir, it is not. According to the Doctor, we are facing an enemy of unknowable power and infinite evil, so it would be good, it would be very good, if we could all remain calm in the presence of decor.'

The Doctor took pity on the young man. 'What's your name?'

'Bob, sir.'

'Ah, that's a great name. I love Bob.'

'It's a Sacred Name. We all have Sacred Names,' Octavian told the Doctor. 'They're given to us in the service of the Church.'

'Sacred Bob. More like Scared Bob now, eh?' the Doctor said cheerfully, trying to make Sacred Bob feel better.

'Yes, sir.'

'Ah, good. Scared keeps you fast. Anyone in this room who isn't scared is a moron. Carry on.'

Rose leaned close. 'That was very nice of ya.' She kissed him on the cheek. 'I love you.'

'We'll be moving into the maze in two minutes. You stay with Christian and Angelo. Guard the approach,' Octavian told Bob.

'Isn't there a chance this lot's just going to collapse? There's a whole ship up there,' Rose said.

'Incredible builders, the Aplans,' River remembered.

'Had dinner with their Chief Architect once,' the Doctor told them.

'Really?' Rose asked.

He nodded. 'Two heads are better than one.'

'What, you mean you helped him?'

'No, like I said earlier, he had two heads. That book, the very end, what did it say?'

River took out the book. 'Hang on.'

'Read it to me.'

'What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels.'

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?' Rose asked him. 'Is that from a Robbie Williams song?'

'I'm not sure what it means yet. But I hope it's not as bad as I think it could be.'

Rose looked up at the temple. 'Are we there yet? It's a hell of a climb.'

'The Maze is on six levels, representing the ascent of the soul. Only two levels to go,' River explained.

'Lovely species, the Aplans. We should visit them some time,' the Doctor suggested. 'They were very relaxed, sort of cheerful. Well, that's having two heads, of course. You're never short of a snog with an extra head.'

River was looking around the temple. 'Doctor, there's something. I don't know what it is.'

'Yeah, there's something wrong. Don't know what it is yet, either. Working on it. Of course, then they started having laws against self-marrying. I mean, what was that about? But that's the Church for you . . . Er, no offence, Bishop.'

'Quite a lot taken, if that's all right, Doctor,' Octavian said in an annoyed tone. 'Lowest point in the wreckage is only about fifty feet up from here. That way.'

'The Church had a point, if you think about it,' Rose mused. 'The divorces must have been messy.' She laughed at her own joke as they continued on through the forest of statues. 'I haven't seen this many statues since we were in the British Museum,' she said. 'There's a statue of me in there y'know.'

'Seriously,' River asked her.

'Yeah. The Goddess Fortuna . . .'

'Oh!' the Doctor exclaimed as he suddenly realised what he'd been missing.

'What's wrong?' Rose asked.

'Oh!' River echoed.

'Exactly,' the Doctor said.

'How could we have not noticed that?'

'Low level perception filter, or maybe we're thick.'

'What's wrong, sir?' Octavian asked.

'Nobody move. Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are. Bishop, I am truly sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in terrible danger.'

'What danger?' he enquired.

'The Aplans,' River said.

Octavian frowned in confusion. 'The Aplans?'

'They've got two heads,' River told him.

'Yes, I get that. So?' Rose said, and then the penny dropped. 'Oh God! Sorry, no offence,' she whispered to the bishop.

'So why don't the statues?' the Doctor asked. 'Everyone, over there. Just move. Don't ask questions, don't speak.'

The soldiers moved into an alcove away from the statues.

'Okay, I want you all to switch off your torches,' the Doctor told them.

'Sir?' Cleric Marco queried.

'Just do it. Okay. I'm going to turn off this one too, just for a moment.'

Rose remembered the Angels from before. 'But we won't be able to see them, and it takes them less than a moment to get you.'

River looked at him. 'Are you sure about this?'

'No,' he admitted, but it was the only way to prove the statues were actually Angels.

He flashed his torch off and on in an instant. 'Oh, my God. They've moved,' Rose gasped.

The Doctor ran down the passage, and it was filled with statues coming towards them. 'They're Angels. All of them.'

'But they can't be,' River claimed.

'Clerics, keep watching them,' the Doctor ordered.

He ran back to a vantage point of the main cavern, and saw all the statues were climbing up towards them. 'Every statue in this Maze, every single one, is a Weeping Angel. They're coming after us.'

'But there was only one Angel on the ship. Just the one, I swear,' River told him.

'Could they have been here already?' Rose asked.

The Doctor turned to River. 'The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?'

'Nobody knows.'

He looked at Rose. 'We know.'

'They don't look like Angels,' Octavian noticed.

'And they're not as fast as they were before,' Rose said. 'They should have had us by now.'

'Look at them,' the Doctor said. 'They're dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving.'

'Losing their image,' Rose said.

'And their image is their power,' the Doctor explained. 'Power . . . POWER!'

'Doctor?' Rose called to him quietly, but he was in full lecture mode.

'Don't you see? All that radiation spilling out the drive burn. The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up.'

'We need to get out of here fast,' River said.

Octavian took out his communicator. 'Bob, Angelo, Christian, come in, please. Any of you, come in.'

['It's Bob, sir. Sorry, sir,'] the young, scared Cleric said.

'Bob, are Angelo and Christian with you? All the statues are active. I repeat, all the statues are active.'

['I know, sir. Angelo and Christian are dead, sir. The statues killed them, sir.']

The Doctor grabbed Octavian's communicator. 'Bob, Sacred Bob, it's me, the Doctor.'

'I'm talking to . . .' Octavian protested.

'Where are you now?' the Doctor asked Bob.

Octavian was still protesting at the Doctor's complete disregard for protocol. 'I'm talking to my . . .'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up.'

['I'm on my way up to you, sir. I'm homing in on your signal.']

'Ah, well done, Bob. Scared keeps you fast. Told you, didn't I. Your friends, Bob. What did the Angel do to them?'

['Snapped their necks, sir.']

'What?!' Rose exclaimed.

'That's odd. That's not how the Angels kill you,' the Doctor told them.

'They kill you nicely,' Rose explained.

'They displace you in time . . . Unless they needed the bodies for something,' the Doctor theorised.

Octavian took his communicator back. 'Bob, did you check their data packs for vital signs? We may be able to initiate a rescue plan.'

The Doctor took it back again. 'Oh, don't be an idiot. The Angels don't leave you alive. Bob, keep running. But tell me, how did you escape?'

['I didn't escape, sir. The Angel killed me, too.']

'What do you mean, the Angel killed you?' the Doctor asked.

['Snapped my neck, sir. Wasn't as painless as I expected, but it was pretty quick, so that was something.']

'If you're dead, how can I be talking to you?'

['You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion.']

'So when you say you're on your way up to us . . .'

['It's the Angel that's coming, sir, yes. No way out.']

'Then we get out through the wreckage,' Octavian said. 'Go! Go, go, go. All of you run.'

'Doctor,' Rose called again.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming,' he told her, and then spoke to the bishop. 'Just go. Go, go, go. Yeah. Called you an idiot. Sorry, but there's no way we could have rescued your men.'

'I know that, sir. And when you've flown away in your little blue box, I'll explain that to their families.'

The Doctor still had the communicator. 'Angel Bob. Which Angel am I talking to? The one from the ship?'

['Yes, sir. And the other Angels are still restoring.']

'Ah, so the Angel is not in the wreckage. Thank you.' In its arrogance, the Angel had given him vital information. He ran along the passage, passing Rose as he went.

'Don't wait for me. Go, run.'

'I can't . . . No, really, I can't,' she said.

'Why not?' He asked her.

'Look at it. Look at my hand. It's stone,' Rose told him, looking at her hand holding a handrail.

'You looked into the eyes of an Angel, didn't you?' the Doctor said.

'I couldn't stop myself . . . I tried.'

The Doctor looked at her intensely. 'Listen to me. It's messing with your head. Your hand is not made of stone.'

'It is. Look at it.'

'Rose, its flesh and blood,' he told her. 'It's in your mind, I promise you. You can move that hand. You can let go.'

'I can't, okay? I've tried and I can't. It's stone.'

The Doctor talked in a calm, quiet voice. 'The Angel is going to come and it's going to turn this light off, and then there's nothing I can do to stop it, so do it. Concentrate. Move your hand.'

'I can't.'

'Then we're both going to die.'

'You're not going to die.'

'They'll kill the lights,' he told her.

'You've got to go. You know you have. You've got Andrea to think about . . . and all that stuff in River's diary, that's all got to happen. You know you can't die here.'

'Time can be re-written. It doesn't work like that.'

The statue arrived in the passageway. 'Keep your eyes on it. Don't blink.'

'Don't worry, I remember,' she told him. 'Run!'

'You see, I'm not going. I'm not leaving you here.'

'I don't need you to die for me Love. I need you to live for our daughter.'

'You can move your hand,' he told her.

'It's stone.'

'No it isn't.'

'You've got to go. Those people up there will die without you. If you stay here with me, you'll have as good as killed them.'

['Rose? let me in,'] he thought to her.

She realised what he was thinking. ['Okay, I'll try.'] She replied.

As they kept their eyes fixed on the Angel, he gently eased himself into her consciousness. She let him take over her senses, and when she looked at her hand, it was flesh and blood.

'See? Not stone. Now run,' he commanded.

As they made their way through the tunnel, they heard voices from up ahead.

'The statues are advancing along all corridors. And, sir, my torch keeps flickering,' Cleric Marco said.

'They all do,' Octavian replied.

'So does the gravity globe,' River added.

Octavian called to his soldiers. 'Clerics, we're down to four men. Expect incoming.'

The Doctor entered the chamber. 'Yeah, it's the Angels. They're coming. And they're draining the power for themselves.'

'Which means we won't be able to see them,' Octavian realised.

'Which means we can't stay here,' the Doctor told him.

'Two more incoming,' Octavian announced.

'Any suggestions?' River asked.

'The statues are advancing on all sides. We don't have the climbing equipment to reach the Byzantium,' Octavian said, looking up to the wrecked ship thirty feet above them.

River turned to the Doctor. 'There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you have a really good idea.'

'There's always a way out,' he told her, and it echoed around the chamber. 'There's always a way out.'

['Doctor? Can I speak to the Doctor, please?'] The Angel who used to be Bob called over the communicator.

'Hello, Angels. What's your problem?'

['Your power will not last much longer, and the Angels will be with you shortly. Sorry, sir.']

'Why are you telling me this?' the Doctor asked, although he already knew they wanted to scare the group.

['There's something the Angels are very keen you should know before the end.']

'Which is?'

['I died in fear.']

'I'm sorry?'

['You told me my fear would keep me alive, but I died afraid, in pain and alone. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down.']

'Liar!' Rose called out. 'He told Bob it would keep him fast. He never said it would keep him alive.'

'They're trying to make him angry,' River said.

'No, they're tryin' to distract him by makin' him feel responsible for Bob's death,' Rose told her. She remembered when she had first met him, and how he had been wracked with guilt and remorse.

['I'm sorry, sir. The Angels were very keen for you to know that.']

'Well then, the Angels have made their second mistake because I'm not going to let that pass. I'm sorry you're dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever is left of you, they will be sorrier.'

['But you're trapped, sir, and about to die.']

'Yeah. I'm trapped. And you know what? Speaking of traps, this trap has got a great big mistake in it. A great big, whopping mistake.'

['What mistake, sir?']

The Doctor looked at Rose. 'Trust me?'

'Always have, always will,' she replied.

He looked at River. 'Trust me?'

'Always.'

He called over to the soldiers. 'You lot, trust me?'

'Sir, two more incoming,' Cleric Marco announced.

Octavian nodded. 'We have faith, sir.'

'Then give me your gun,' the Doctor said.

'But you don't use guns,' Rose said.

'That's when you use them to shoot people,' he said cryptically. 'I'm about to do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. When I do, jump!'

'Jump where?' Octavian asked.

'Just jump, high as you can. Come on, leap of faith, Bishop. On my signal.'

'What signal?'

'You won't miss it.'

['Sorry, can I ask again? You mentioned a mistake we made.']

The Doctor pointed the pistol at the hull of the Byzantium. 'Oh, big mistake. Huge. Didn't anyone ever tell you there's one thing you never put in a trap? If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap.'

['And what would that be, sir?']

'Me!' he said and fired at the gravity globe that was floating below the hull of the Byzantium.


	4. Flesh and Stone

**Chapter 9**

 **Flesh and Stone**

'Up. Look up,' the Doctor told the group.

Everyone struggled to their feet on an artificial surface, although the tunnel walls were still made of stone.

'Are you okay?' River asked Rose as she stood up.

'What happened?' Rose asked.

'We jumped,' River told her.

Rose looked around with a puzzled expression. 'Jumped where? Was it like a teleport or somethin'?'

'Up. Up. Look up,' the Doctor told them.

'Where are we?' Rose asked.

'Exactly where we were,' River said cryptically.

Rose frowned. 'No we ain't.'

'Move your feet,' the Doctor told her as he crouched down to sonic a circular hatch in the floor, with six inset lights around it.

Rose was looking up at the roof of a cave. 'Doctor, what am I lookin' at up there?'

'Oh, come on, Rose, think,' he said in his school master tone of voice. 'The ship crashed with the power still on, yeah? So what else is still on? The artificial gravity. One good jump, and up we fell. Shot out the grav globe to give us an updraft, and here we are.'

They were actually standing upside down on the hull of the Byzantium, looking down at the terrace of the chamber where they had just been standing. Four Weeping Angels were frozen, looking and reaching out to them.

'Doctor, the statues. They look more like Angels now,' Octavian reported.

'They're feeding on the radiation from the wreckage, draining all the power from the ship, restoring themselves. Within an hour, they'll be an army.'

The circular iris hatch opened and a light went bang. 'They're taking out the lights. Look at them. Look at the Angels. Into the ship, now. Quickly, all of you.'

'How?' Rose asked, looking down a long vertical tube.

The Doctor dropped through the open hatch into the vertical tube. From everyone's point of view, he was standing on the side of the vertical tube.

'Doctor?!' Rose said in amazement.

'It's just a corridor,' he replied. 'The gravity orientates to the floor. Now, in here, all of you. Don't take your eyes off the Angels. Move, move, move.' He was inspecting the hatch controls inside and using his sonic screwdriver on them.

'Okay, men. Go, go, go!' Octavian ordered. Inside the cylindrical corridor, he looked back at the hatch. 'The Angels. Presumably they can jump up too?'

The Doctor activated his sonic, and the iris hatch closed. 'They're here, now. In the dark, we're finished.' The hatch leading into the ship started to roll shut. 'Run!'

'This whole place is a death trap,' Octavian said.

The hatch shut tight, trapping them in the corridor. 'No, it's a time bomb . . . Well, it's a death trap and a time bomb. And now it's a dead end. Nobody panic,' the Doctor said, and nobody was. There was banging on the outside of the hatch. 'Oh, just me then. What's through here?'

'Secondary flight deck,' River told him.

'Okay. so we've basically run up the inside of a chimney, yeah? So what if the gravity fails?' Rose wondered.

'I've thought about that,' the Doctor informed her.

'And?'

'And we'll all plunge to our deaths. See? I've thought about it.'

River pulled down a panel and started working on the inner hatch controls, while the Doctor examined the hatch controls. 'The security protocols are still live. There's no way to override them. It's impossible.'

River looked away from the panel. 'How impossible?'

'Two minutes,' he told her.

The outer hatch opened, and Octavian took up a defensive position. 'The hull is breached and the power's failing.'

The lights went out, and they saw an arm silhouetted against the open hatch.

'Sir, incoming,' Cleric Marco said.

'Doctor? Lights,' Rose said nervously.

The Angel was starting to enter. The was another flicker of the lights, and three more were inside and the hatch was closed behind them.

'Clerics, keep watching them,' Octavian told his troops.

'And don't look at their eyes,' the Doctor warned them. 'Anywhere else. Not the eyes. I've isolated the lighting grid. They can't drain the power now.'

'Good work, Doctor,' Octavian said.

'Yeah, good . . . brilliant in fact . . . Good in lots of ways. Good you like it so far.'

'So far?' Rose asked, wondering what else was coming.

'Well, there's only one way to open this door. I guess I'll need to route all the power in this section through the door control.'

'Good. Fine. Do it,' Octavian told him.

'Including the lights,' he told him. 'All of them. I'll need to turn out the lights.'

'How long for?' Octavian asked.

'Fraction of a second. Maybe longer. Maybe quite a bit longer.'

'Maybe?'

'I'm guessing. We're being attacked by statues in a crashed ship. There isn't a manual for this.'

'Doctor, we lost the torches,' Rose reminded him. 'We'll be in total darkness.'

'No other way. Bishop.'

'Doctor Song, I've lost good Clerics today. You trust this man?' Octavian asked River.

'I absolutely trust him.'

'He's not some kind of madman, then?'

'Ah,' Rose said. How do you answer that one? She found out when River spoke again.

'I absolutely trust him,' River said again.

'Excuse me,' the Doctor said, slapping their shoulders and joining Rose at the hatch.

Octavian leaned close to River and spoke softly. 'I'm taking your word, because you seem to be able to get through to this guy. But that only works so long as he doesn't know who you are. You cost me any more men, and I might just tell him. Understood?'

'Understood,' she said reluctantly.

'Okay, Doctor. We've got your back,' Octavian told him.

'Bless you. Bishop.'

Octavian organised his Clerics. 'Combat distance, ten feet. As soon as the lights go down, continuous fire. Full spread over the hostiles. Do not stop firing while the lights are out. Shot gun protocol. We don't have bullets to waste.'

'Rose, when the lights go down, the wheel should release. Spin it clockwise four turns,' the Doctor told them.

'Ten. Got it,' Rose said

'No, four,' he corrected her. 'Four turns.'

'Yeah, four. I heard you.'

'Ready?!' He plunged his sonic screwdriver into the control unit.

'On my count, then,' Octavian commanded. 'God be with us all. Three, two, one, fire!'

The lights went out, and the Clerics started shooting at the approaching Angels.

'Turn!' the Doctor called out.

'Doctor, it's openin', it's workin',' Rose said. She got the bulkhead open just enough to squeeze through.

'FALL BACK!' the Doctor shouted over the gunfire.

The Doctor held the bulkhead door open with his sonic while everyone got through, and then squeezed through himself. They ran along a short corridor to another bulkhead door, where he used his sonic again to open it and let the group into the Secondary Flight Deck.

'Doctor, quickly,' Rose called to him, and again he squeezed through the closing gap. He hurried to the control station with River and Octavian.

'Doctor!' Rose called as the wheel on the door started to turn.

Octavian placed a device on the door and activated it.

'What are you doin'?' Rose asked him.

'Magnetized the door. Nothing could turn that wheel now,' Octavian announced.

'Yeah?' the Doctor asked skeptically, and the wheel started to turn.

'Dear God!' Octavian exclaimed.

'Ah, now you're getting it,' the Doctor said. 'You've bought us time though. That's good. I am good with time.'

'Doctor,' Rose said as she saw the wheel on a door to the right start to turn.

'Seal that door. Seal it now,' Octavian commanded.

Cleric Marco stuck another device to the door, and the wheel stopped turning.

'We're surrounded,' River said as the wheel on the door to the left started turning.

'Seal it. Seal that door,' Octavian ordered. 'Doctor, how long have we got?'

'Five minutes, max.'

'Nine,' Rose said out of the blue.

'Five,' the Doctor corrected.

'Five. Right. Yeah,' Rose replied with a puzzled expression.

'Why'd you say nine?'

'I didn't.'

'We need another way out of here,' River said.

Octavian looked around. 'There isn't one.'

'Yeah, there is,' the Doctor told him. 'Course there is. This is a galaxy class ship. Goes for years between planet falls.' He clicked his fingers. 'So, what do they need?'

'Of course,' River realised.

'Of course what?'What do they need?' Rose asked.

Octavian looked at a section of the wall. 'Can we get in there?'

The Doctor made his way over to the recessed section of wall and inspected it. 'Well, it's a sealed unit, but they must have installed it somehow. This whole wall should slide up. There's clamps.' He took out his sonic screwdriver and sonicked the clamps at the base of the wall. 'Release the clamps.'

'What's through there? What do they need?' Rose asked.

'They need to breathe,' River told her as the rear wall of the flight deck slid up.

Rose's jaw dropped. 'But that's. That's a . . .' Rose said.

'It's an oxygen factory,' River explained.

'It's a forest,' Rose said.

'Yeah, it's a forest,' River agreed. 'It's an oxygen factory.'

'And if we're lucky, an escape route,' the Doctor said.

'Eight,' Rose said randomly.

The Doctor looked at her. 'What did you say?'

Rose was unaware that she'd said anything. 'Nothin'.'

'Is there another exit?' the Doctor asked. 'Scan the architecture, we don't have time to get lost in there.'

Octavian stepped into the forest. 'On it. Stay where you are until I've checked the Rad levels.'

'But trees, on a space ship?' Rose said.

The Doctor followed Octavian into the forest. 'Oh, more than trees. Way better than trees. You're going to love this.' He pulled at a piece of tree trunk, and it peeled back to reveal a web of fibre optic cables. 'Treeborgs. Trees plus technology. Branches become cables become sensors on the hull. A forest sucking in starlight, breathing out air. It even rains. There's a whole mini-climate. This vault is an ecopod running right through the heart of the ship. A forest in a bottle on a space ship in a maze.'

'Seven,' Rose said.

'Seven?' He queried, looking intently into her eyes.

'Sorry, what?'

'You said seven.'

'No. I didn't.'

'Yes. you did.'

Octavian called from the forest. 'Doctor, there's an exit, far end of the ship, into the Primary Flight Deck.'

'Oh, good. That's where we need to go.'

'Plotting a safe path now.'

'Quick as you like.'

['Doctor? Excuse me? Hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir.']

The Doctor took the communicator out of his coat pocket and sat in the control chair. 'Ah. There you are, Angel Bob. How's life? Sorry, bad subject.'

[' The Angels are wondering what you hope to achieve.']

'Achieve? We're not achieving anything. We're just hanging. It's nice in here. Consoles, comfy chairs, a forest. How's things with you?'

['The Angels are feasting, sir. Soon we will be able to absorb enough power to consume this vessel, this world. and all the stars and worlds beyond.']

'Well, we've got comfy chairs. Did I mention?'

['We have no need of comfy chairs.']

The Doctor turned of the communicator and spoke over his shoulder. 'I made him say comfy chairs.'

Rose laughed and said, 'six.'

'Okay, Bob, enough chat. Here's what I want to know. What have you done to Rose?'

['There is something in her eye.']

'What's in her eye?'

['We are.']

'What's he talking about? Doctor, I'm five,' Rose told him. 'I mean, five . . . Fine! I'm fine.'

'You're counting,' Rose said.

'Countin'?' Rose asked.

The Doctor looked in her eyes again. 'You're counting down from ten. You have been for a couple of minutes.'

'Why?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, countin' down to what?'

'I don't know.'

['We shall take her. We shall take all of you. We shall have dominion over all time and space.']

The Doctor sat back in the comfy chair. 'Get a life, Bob. Oops, sorry again. There's power on this ship, but nowhere near that much.'

['With respect, sir, there's more power on this ship than you yet understand.'] A screeching sound came from outside the flight deck.

'What's that?' Rose asked.

'Dear God, what is it?' River also wanted to know.

'They're back,' Octavian announced.

['It's hard to put in your terms, Doctor Song, but as best as I understand it, the Angels are laughing.']

'Laughing?' the Doctor asked.

['Because you haven't noticed yet, sir. The Doctor in the TARDIS hasn't noticed.']

'Doctor,' Octavian called to him. It was time to move out.

'No. Wait. There's something I've missed.'

A steaming "W" shaped crack had appeared in the bulkhead above the forest entrance, and it was widening.

Rose looked at it wide eyed. 'That's, that's, that's like the crack in Amy's wall.'

'Yes. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched,' the Doctor told her.

'Okay, enough,' Octavian said. 'We're moving out.'

'Agreed,' River concurred. 'Doctor?'

The Doctor was moving a large crate towards the entrance. 'Yeah, fine.'

'What'cha doin'?' Rose asked.

'Right with you,' he said as he climbed on the crate and started scanning the crack.

'We're not leaving without you,' River told him.

'Oh yes, you are . . . Bishop?'

'Miss Tyler, Doctor Song, now!'

'Doctor?' Rose was reluctant to leave him.

'Come on!' River said.

The Doctor looked at the results of the scan. 'So, what are you? Oh, that's bad. Ah, that's extremely very not good.'

* * *

'Rose, what's wrong?' River asked her as they made their way into the forest.

'Four,' Rose replied. She swayed and sat down, then lay on a moss covered outcrop.

'Med scanner, now,' River commanded.

'Doctor Song, we can't stay here. We've got to keep moving,' Octavian told her.

'We wait for the Doctor.'

'Our mission is to make this wreckage safe and neutralise the Angels. Until that is achieved . . .'

'Father Octavian, when the Doctor's in the room, your one and only mission is to keep him alive long enough to get everyone else home. And trust me, it's not easy. Now, if he's dead back there, I'll never forgive myself. And if he's alive, I'll never forgive him. And, Doctor, you're standing right behind me, aren't you?'

'Oh, yes,' the Doctor said with a grin.

'I hate you,' she said playfully.

'You don't,' he told her. 'Bishop, the Angels are in the forest.'

'We need visual contact on every line of approach,' Octavian told his Clerics.

'How did you get past them?' River asked the Doctor.

'I found a crack in the wall and told them it was the end of the universe.'

'What was it?' Rose asked.

'The end of the universe,' he told her and then knelt down to examiner her. 'Let's have a look, then.'

'So, what's wrong with me?'

'Nothing. You're fine,' River said, trying to keep her calm.

'Everything. You're dying,' the Doctor told her.

'Doctor!'

'Yes, you're right. If we lie to her, she'll get all better. Right. Rose, Rose, Rose. What's the matter with Rose? Something's in her eye. What does that mean? Does it mean anything?' he rambled on.

'Doctor,' Rose said weakly.

'Busy,' he told her as he tried to think of a way to save her.

'Scared,' she replied.

'Course you're scared. You're dying. Shut up,' he said with more humour than he was feeling right now.

'Okay, let him think,' River said.

The Doctor thought out loud. 'What happened? She stared at the Angel. She looked into the eyes of an Angel for too long . . .'

'Sir! Angel incoming,' Marco called out.

'And here,' Phillip added.

'Keep visual contact,' Octavian ordered. 'Do not let it move.'

'Come on, come on, come on. Wakey, wakey,' the Doctor told his sleepy wife. 'She watched an Angel climb out of the screen. She stared at the Angel and, and . . .'

'The image of an Angel is an Angel,' Rose remembered.

'A living mental image in a living human mind. But we stare at them to stop them getting closer. We don't even blink, and that is exactly what they want. Because as long as our eyes are open, they can climb inside. There's an Angel in her mind.'

'Three. Doctor, it's coming. I can feel it. I'm going to die.'

'Please just shut up. I'm thinking. Now, counting. What's that about? Bob, why are they making her count?'

['To make her afraid, sir.']

'Okay, but why? What for?'

['For fun, sir.']

The Doctor looked at the communicator in disgust and threw it away.

'Doctor, what's happening to me?'

'Inside your head, in the vision centres of your brain, there's an Angel. It's like there's a screen, a virtual screen inside your mind and the Angel is climbing out of it, and it's coming to shut you off.'

'Then what I do?'

'If it was a real screen, what would we do? We'd pull the plug. We'd kill the power,' he told River. 'But we can't just knock her out, the Angel would just take over.'

'Then what? Quickly,' River said.

'We've got to shut down the vision centres of her brain. We've got to pull the plug. Starve the Angel.'

'Doctor, she's got seconds,' River reminded him. As if he needed reminding that the love of his life had seconds to live.

And then he had an idea. 'How would you starve your lungs?'

'I'd stop breathing,' River told him.

'Rose, close your eyes,' he said calmly.

Rose was afraid that if she closed her eyes, she would never open them again. 'No. No, I don't want to.' She knew you had to keep looking at an Angel.

'Good, because that's not you, that's the Angel inside you. It's afraid. Do it. Close your eyes,' he told her.

Rose squeezed her eyes shut, and the med scanner changed from red to green.

'She's normalising,' River observed. 'Oh, you did it. You did it.'

'Sir? Two more incoming,' Phillip called out.

'Three more over here,' Pedro said.

River checked on Rose. 'Still weak. Dangerous to move her.'

'So, can I open my eyes now?' Rose asked.

'Rose, listen to me. If you open your eyes now for more than a second, you will die. The Angel is still inside you. We haven't stopped it, we've just sort of paused it. You've used up your countdown. You cannot open your eyes,' the Doctor explained.

'Doctor, we're too exposed here. We have to move on,' Octavian told him.

'We're too exposed everywhere. And Rose can't move. And anyway, that's not the plan.'

'There's a plan?' River asked in surprise.

'I don't know yet. I haven't finished talking. Right! Father, you and your Clerics, you're going to stay here, look after Rose. If anything happens to her, I'll hold every single one of you personally responsible, twice. River, you and me, we're going to find the Primary Flight Deck which is . . .'

He wet a finger and held it up. 'A quarter of a mile straight ahead, and from there we're going to stabilise the wreckage, stop the Angels, and cure Rose.'

River raised her eyebrows. 'How?'

'I'll do a thing.'

'What thing?' River pressed him.

'I don't know . . . It's a thing in progress. Respect the thing . . . Moving out!'

'Doctor, I'm coming with you,' Octavian said. 'My Clerics'll look after Miss Tyler. These are my best men. They'd lay down their lives in her protection.'

'I don't need you.'

'I don't care. Where Doctor Song goes, I go.'

'Wha'? You two engaged or something?'

'Yes, in a manner of speaking. Marco, you're in charge till I get back.'

'Sir,' Marco said.

'Doctor? Please, can't I come with you?' Rose asked anxiously.

'You'd slow us down, Miss Tyler,' Octavian explained.

'I don't want to sound selfish, but you'd really speed me up,' Rose joked, really trying to get him to take her with him.

'You'll be safer here,' the Doctor said quietly. 'We can't protect you on the move. I'll be back for you soon as I can, I promise.'

'You always say that,' Rose told him. 'What have I told you about promises?'

The Doctor smiled. 'I always come back.' He kissed her on the forehead. 'Good luck, everyone. Behave. Do not let that girl open her eyes. And keep watching the forest. Stop those Angels advancing . . . Rose, later. River, going to need your computer!'

'Yeah. Later,' Rose said.

Octavian led the Doctor and River into the forest towards the Primary Flight Deck. Rose was sitting on the mossy outcrop, listening to the Clerics around her. She could sense that something was wrong.

'So, what's happening? Anything happening out there?' Rose asked.

'The Angels are still grouping. Are you getting this too?' Marco asked.

'The trees? Yeah,' Phillip replied.

'What's wrong with the trees?' Rose asked.

'Here too, sir. They're ripping the Treeborgs apart,' Pedro announced.

Phillip called out. 'And here. They're taking out the lights.'

'What is it? What's happening? Tell me!' Rose insisted.. 'I can't see,'

'It's the trees. ma'am,' Marco said. 'The trees are going out.'

'Angels advancing, sir,' Phillip said.

'Over here again' Pedro told them.

Marco went into combat mode. 'Weapons primed. Combat distance five feet. Wait for it.'

'What is it? What's happening? Just tell me!' Rose said in desperation.

'Keep your position and, ma'am, keep your eyes shut,' Marco told Rose. A bright light flooded through the trees in the forest. 'Wait.'

'The ship's not on fire. is it?' Marco asked.

Pedro tried to see through the trees. 'It can't be. the compressors would have taken care of it. Marco, the Angels have gone. Where'd they go?'

'What, the Angels?' Rose asked.

'This side's clear too, sir,' Phillip called out.

Rose moved her head around trying to hear what was happening. 'The Angels have gone?'

'There's still movement out there, but away from us now. It's like they're running,' Marco said.

'Running from what?' Rose asked.

'Phillip, Crispin, need to get a closer look at that,' Marco told them.

'What are you all looking at? What's there?' Rose asked in frustration.

'It's like, I don't know, a curtain of energy, sort of shifting. Makes you feel weird. Sick,' Marco explained.

'And you think it scared the Angels?' Rose said.

'What could scare those things?' Pedro asked.

Rose stood up and started stumbling about.

'What are you doing?' Marco asked.

'Point me at the light,' she told him.

'You can't open your eyes.'

'I can't open them for more than a second, that's what the Doctor said. Still got a bit of countdown left.'

'Ma'am. you can't.'

'I need to see it,' Rose told him. She needed to report back to the Doctor. 'Am I looking the right way? I have to be quick.'

'Very quick,' Marco said as he pointed her at the light.

'Okay.' Rose opened her eyes and saw the jagged crack that she had seen in Amy Pond's wall. ['Oh my God! Love, we've got a problem,'] she thought to her husband.

['Rose, are you okay?'] He could feel her distress.

She spoke and thought the same message. 'It's the same shape. It's the crack in Amy's wall.'

'Close your eyes, now!' Marco commanded.

['The crack that Prisoner Zero came through?']

['It's following us, and it's bigger than ever! How can it be following us?'] She fell to her knees and Marco put his hand over her eyes.

'Are you okay?' Marco asked kindly.

'Yeah. It was the same shape.'

'Marco, you want me to get a closer look at that?' Pedro asked.

Rose could hear the Doctor's internal dialogue in her head. ['Cracks . . . Cracks in time. The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall. Time running out. No, couldn't be. Couldn't be. But how is a duck pond a duck pond if there aren't any ducks? Okay, time can shift. Time can change. Time can be rewritten. Ah. Oh!']

'Marco, you want me to get a closer look at that?' Pedro asked, nodding at the illuminated crack.

'Go for it. Don't get too close.'

'Hang on. What about the other two?' Rose asked. 'Why not just wait until they're back?'

'What other two?' Marco asked.

'The ones you sent before,' she said in a puzzled tone.

'I didn't send anyone before.'

'You did, I heard you. Crispin and Phillip,' Rose told him.

'Crispin and who? Rose, there never was a Crispin or a Phillip on this mission, I promise you.'

['Uh-oh,'] Rose thought to the Doctor. ['If you think a crack in the universe is bad, this is really gonna ruin your day. Two of the Clerics have disappeared.']

['Disappeared? Have the Angels got enough power now to zap them into the past?'] he asked himself.

['I don't think it was the Angels. Marco and Pedro don't remember them. It's like they never existed.']

['Time can be rewritten! Oh, got to go. An Angel has got the Bishop in a headlock.']

'No, I heard you,' Rose told Marco. 'Before you sent Pedro, you sent Crispin and Phillip, and now you can't even remember them. Something happened. I don't know what, and you don't even remember.'

'Pedro?' Marco asked.

'Yeah, before you sent Pedro.'

'Who's Pedro?'

'Something's happening. Pedro was here a second ago and now you can't even remember him.'

'There never was a Pedro. There's only ever been the two of us here.'

'No, there were five of us. Why can't you remember?' Rose pleaded.

Marco had heard enough.. 'Listen. Listen. I need to get a closer look at that light, whatever it is. Don't worry, I won't get too close.'

'No. No, you can't,' Rose told him. 'You mustn't.'

'Here. Spare communicator. I'll stay in touch the whole time,' Marco said as he handed Rose the radio.

'You won't, because if you go back there what happened to the others will happen to you,' Rose told him in a calm, quiet voice.

The sad, resigned look on her face made Marco doubt his own conviction. He knew that the Bishop had given him the sole task of defending Rose, and if there was a light that could keep the Angels at bay, then he needed to investigate it.

'There weren't any others,' he told her sadly. The stress of the situation had obviously gotten to her.

'There won't be any you if you go back there,' Rose said.

'Two minutes. I promise,' Marco said as he headed towards the light.

'Please, just listen to me!' Rose called to the retreating Cleric.

* * *

'Let him go!' the Doctor demanded of the Angel which had the Bishop in a half Nelson.

'Well, it can't let me go, sir, can it? Not while you're looking at it.'

'I can't stop looking at it, it'll kill you.'

'It's going to kill me anyway. Think it through. There's no way out of this. You have to leave me.'

'Can't you wriggle out?'

'No, it's too tight. You have to leave me, sir. There's nothing you can do.'

The Doctor wrung his hands together helplessly and looked around for inspiration. What he wouldn't give for Michelangelo's sculpting tools right now. He'd have that arm off in a second.

'Sir, there's nothing you can do,' Octavian told him.

'You're dead if I leave you.'

'Yes. Yes, I'm dead. And before you go . . .'

'I'm not going.'

'Listen to me, it's important,' Octavian said sternly. 'You can't trust her.'

'Trust who?'

'River Song. You think you know her, but you don't. You don't understand who or what she is.'

'Then tell me.'

'I've told you more than I should. Now please, you have to go. It's your duty to your friends.'

'Just tell me why she was in Stormcage?'

'She killed a man. A good man. A hero to many.'

'Who?'

'You don't want to know, sir. You really don't.'

'Who did she kill?'

'Sir, the Angels are coming. You have to leave me.'

'You'll die.'

'I will die in the knowledge that my courage did not desert me at the end. For that I thank God, and bless the path that takes you to safety.'

'I wish I'd known you better,' the Doctor said sadly.

'I think, sir, you know me at my best,' Octavian replied courageously.

'Ready?'

'Content.'

The Doctor dived through the hatch onto Primary Flight Deck, and closed it behind him.

'There's a teleport,' River told him. 'If I can get it to work. we can beam the others here. Where's Octavian?'

'Octavian's dead. So is that teleport. You're wasting your time. I'm going to need your communicator.' He needed to talk to Rose, and didn't want River to get suspicious about his telepathy with his wife.

River handed it over, and he switched it on to hear a conversation between Rose and Cleric Marco.

['Hello? Are you there? Hello? Hello?']

['I'm here. I'm fine. Quite close to it now.']

['Then come back. Come back now, please.']

['It's weird looking at it. It feels really . . .']

['Really what? Hello? Really what? Hello? Hello? Hello? Please say you're there. Hello? Hello?']

'Rose? Rose? Is that you?' the Doctor asked.

['Doctor?']

'How many of the Clerics are left with you?'

['They've gone. There was a light from the crack and they walked into the light. Doctor, they didn't even remember each other.']

'No, they wouldn't.'

'What is that light?' River asked him.

'Time running out,' he replied. 'Rose, Rose, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I should never have left you there.'

['Well, what do I do now?'] Rose asked.

'You come to us. The Primary Flight Deck, the other end of the forest.'

['I can't see. I can't open my eyes,'] Rose reminded him.

'I know, and I'm sorry, but you have to start moving now. There's Time Energy spilling out of that crack, and you have to stay ahead of it.' He thought to her. ['I'll guide you through, I can show you the path in my mind.']

['But the Angels, they're everywhere,'] Rose explained over the radio.

'I'm sorry, I really am, but the Angels can only kill you.'

['What does the Time Energy do?'] Rose asked him.

'Just keep moving!' he said, avoiding the question.

['Tell me,'] Rose demanded.

'If the Time Energy catches up with you, you'll never have been born. It will erase every moment of your existence. You will never have lived at all. Now, you keep your eyes shut and keep moving.'

'It's never going to work,' River said.

'WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT? RIVER, TELL ME!' he shouted angrily, afraid for his wife.

At that moment, there were clanging noises around the ship. 'What's that?' River asked.

'The Angels running from the fire. They came here to feed on the Time Energy, now it's going to feed on them.'

'That Time Energy, what's it going to do?' River asked him.

He rubbed his eyes wearily. 'Er, keep eating.'

'How do we stop it?'

'Feed it.'

'Feed it what?'

'A big, complicated space time event should shut it up for a while.'

'Like what, for instance?'

'LIKE ME, FOR INSTANCE!' he shouted. "Or like the Bad Wolf in Rose," he thought. He was running out of patience . . . and time.

['Doctor, there are Angels all around me now,] Rose called to him over the communicator.

'Rose, listen to me. This is going to be hard but I know you can do it. The Angels are scared and running, and right now they're not that interested in you. They'll assume you can see them and their instincts will kick in. All you've got to do is walk like you can see.' ['Rose, don't open your eyes. Walk like you can see. You are not moving. You have to do this . . . Now.'] There was still no sign of her moving. He banged his hand on the console in frustration. 'YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!'

There was a long silence before Rose's voice quietly spoke over the communicator. ['Doctor. I don't think I can move, I can hear them all around me. I'm surrounded by Angels, and I seem to be the centre of attention. I think they know I can't see.']

'ROSE! Keep moving! I'll think of something,' he said quickly, but he didn't know what.

There was a flash of light, and River grabbed hold of Rose. 'Don't open your eyes Rose. You're on the Flight Deck. The Doctor's here. I teleported you.' She looked at the Doctor with a satisfied smile. 'See? Told you I could get it working.'

He ran forward and hugged Rose, kissing her on the top of her head before looking at River. 'River Song, I could bloody kiss you,' he said.

River grinned. 'Ah well, maybe when you're older.'

An alarm started to blare out. 'What's that?' Rose asked.

'The Angels are draining the last of the ship's power, which means the shield's going to release,' he explained as he walked over to the forest bulkhead. The bulkhead rose to reveal an array of Angels.

'Angel Bob, I presume,' he said to an Angel holding a communicator.

['The Time Field is coming. It will destroy our reality.']

'Yeah, and look at you all, running away. What can I do for you?'

['There is a rupture in time. The Angels calculate that if you throw yourself into it, it will close, and they will be saved.']

'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could do, could do that. But why?'

['Your friends will also be saved.']

'Well, there is that.'

'I've travelled in time,' River told him. 'I'm a complicated space time event too. Throw me in.'

'Oh, be serious. Compared to me, these Angels are more complicated than you, and it would take every one of them to amount to me, so get a grip.'

'You're not seriously considerin' helpin' them by throwin' yourself into that thing are you?' Rose asked in disbelief.

'Doctor, I can't let you do this,' River said.

'No, seriously, get a grip,' he told them.

'You're not going to die here!' Rose said angrily.

'No, I mean it. Rose, River, get a grip.'

River looked at the readouts on the display and realised what was happening. 'Oh, you genius.'

['Sir, the Angels need you to sacrifice yourself now.']

'Thing is, Bob, the Angels are draining all the power from this ship. Every last bit of it. And you know what? I think they've forgotten where they're standing. I think they've forgotten the gravity of the situation. Or to put it another way, Angels . . .'

A monitor said Gravity Failing, as River put Rose's hand on the handles of a console module. 'You hold on tight and don't you let go for anything.'

The Doctor gave the Angels a lopsided smile 'Night, night.'

The monitor displayed Gravity Failed, and they felt themselves being pulled off the floor towards the forest, which used to be behind them, but was now below them. The Doctor and River looked down past their feet, and saw the Angels falling backwards through the forest, where they disappeared into the crack, which then closed.

'Now what?' Rose asked as they hung from the consoles.

'Ah, yes. Right. I'd better come up with a plan to get us out of here,' he said sheepishly.


	5. The Vampires of Venice

**Chapter 10**

 **The Vampires of Venice**

On the beach by the Aplan Temple, Rose sat on a rock wrapped in a blanket, cooing at Andrea in her arms and beaming a smile at the universe in general. The Doctor stroked his daughter's cheek with his finger.

'Ah. Bruised everywhere,' Rose told him.

'Me too,' the Doctor said.

'You didn't have to climb out with your eyes shut,' she said.

'Neither did you. I kept saying. The Angels all fell into the Time Field. The Angel in your memory never existed. It can't harm you now.'

'Then why do I remember it at all? Those guys on the ship didn't remember each other.'

'You're a time traveller Rose. You see the universe differently,' the Doctor explained.

'And the crack, is that gone too?' Rose asked him.

'Yeah, for now. But the explosion that caused it is still happening. Somewhere out there, somewhere in time.'

All the Clerics were back, now that the Time Field had closed. The Doctor went over to River who was waiting to be transported out.

'You, me, handcuffs,' she said saucily, holding up the high-tech cuffs for him to see. 'Must it always end this way?'

'What now?' he asked her.

'The prison ship's in orbit. They'll beam me up any second. I might have done enough to earn a pardon this time. We'll see.'

'Octavian said you killed a man.'

'Yes, I did.'

'A good man.'

'A very good man. The best man I've ever known.'

'Who?'

'It's a long story. Doctor. It can't be told, it has to be lived. No sneak previews. Well, except for this one. You'll see me again quite soon, when the Pandorica opens.'

The Doctor laughed. 'The Pandorica. Ha! That's a fairy tale.'

'Doctor, aren't we all? I'll see you there.'

'I look forward to it.'

'I remember it well.'

'Bye, River,' Rose said.

'See you, both. Oh, I think that's my ride.'

'Can I trust you. River Song?' the Doctor asked her.

'If you like,' she replied. 'Ha, but where's the fun in that?'

There was a whirl of sand like a dust devil, and River disappeared.

Rose went over to her husband and put her arm around his waist. Now River was gone, and there were no more spoilers, she could be his wife again. 'What are you thinkin'?'

He put his arm around her shoulders and looked out over the ocean. 'Time can be rewritten.'

He led her into the TARDIS, and started the Time Rotor. He checked the console to make sure everything was working as expected, and then took Andrea off Rose. 'Come on young lady, I think it's time for some father-daughter time together.'

He went through to the living room, sat on the sofa with Andrea on his lap, and started chatting away to her about this and that. Andrea looked at him and smiled, as though she understood every word he was saying. Rose wouldn't have been surprised if she did.

They spent a very enjoyable family evening together, and after putting their daughter in her cot for the night, they spent a very enjoyable night in bed together.

* * *

'What'cha think then?' Rose asked as she entered the console room. She'd been to the wardrobe to find a sixteenth century outfit for her and Andrea.

'Oh very nice,' he said with an appreciative gaze. She was wearing a pale green, silk dress inlaid with gold brocade. She had found a cream silk dress for Andrea to wear.

Next to the console, Rose noticed a beautiful, sixteenth century antique pram. 'Oh my God! That's beautiful. Where did you get that from?'

'What, this?' he said looking at the pram. 'You've seen it before.'

'I'm sure I'd have noticed.'

He gave her a mischievous grin as he activated a control on the console. The antique pram morphed into the futuristic hover-pram. 'I fitted a chameleon circuit into the electronics . . . Good huh?'

'It's brilliant. So I know when we are, sixteenth century. But where are we?' she asked him.

'Somewhere that literally oozes romance,' he told her as he headed for the doors. He stepped out of the TARDIS wearing his usual outfit of a brown pinstripe suit. 'Venezia. La Serenissima. Impossible city. Preposterous city. Founded by refugees running from Attila the Hun.' Rose stepped out behind him with Andrea in the beautifully ornate pram.

He started to walk through the busy market place. 'It was just a collection of little wooden huts in the middle of the marsh, but became one of the most powerful cities in the world. Constantly being invaded, constantly flooding, constantly just beautiful. Ah, you got to love Venice. So many people did. Byron, Napoleon, Casanova. Ooh, that reminds me.' He looked at his watch.

'1580. That's all right. Casanova doesn't get born for a hundred and forty five years. Don't want to run into him. I owe him a chicken.'

Rose snorted a laugh. 'You owe Casanova a chicken?'

He waggled his eyebrows and smiled at her. 'Long story. We had a bet.'

As they walked along, they were stopped by an official. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Papers, if you please. Proof of residency, current bill of medical inspection.'

The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket, took out his psychic paper, and held it in front of the official's face. 'There you go, fellah. All to your satisfaction, I think you'll find.'

The inspector's eyes went wide with surprise. 'I am so sorry, Your Holiness. I didn't realise.'

The Doctor made the sign of the cross with his hands. 'No worries. You were just doing your job . . . Sorry, what exactly is your job?'

'Checking for aliens. Visitors from foreign lands what might bring the plague with them.'

'Oh, that's nice,' Rose said. 'See where you bring us? The plague.'

'Don't worry, Viscountess. No, we're under quarantine here. No one comes in, no one goes out, and all because of the grace and wisdom of our patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri,' the inspector told her.

The Doctor was intrigued. 'That's interesting. I heard the plague died out years ago.'

'Not out there. No, Signora Calvierri has seen it with her own eyes. Streets are piled high with bodies, she said.'

'Did she now.'

Rose took the psychic paper off the Inspector and saw that it said she was Vicountessa Lungbarrowmas de Gallifreya. "That's one to add to the knighthood", she thought to herself with a smile, as she popped the wallet down the front of her bodice.

They walked along a walkway adjacent to a canal, and they stopped at a stone balustrade to look out across the canal where gondolas gracefully glided by. On the other side of the canal was a large house with a courtyard. Iron gates swung open, and young ladies in white dresses with white parasols and heavy veils on their heads walked out two by two, led by an elderly lady in black clothing.

The Doctor and Rose watched with interest as a dark skinned man hurried towards the group of ladies.

'What do you want?' the elderly lady demanded.

'Where's my Isabella?' the dark skinned man asked her, as he started to lift the veils.

'What are you doing? Get away from there.'

The man lifts the veil of a dark skinned girl. 'Isabella? Isabella, it's me.'

They see one of the girls knock the man to the ground.

'Girls, come along,' the elderly woman called to the young women.

A young man in a cape put his foot on the fallen man's chest. 'She's gone,' he told him.

The man looked over to the retreating ladies. 'Isabella! It's me!'

'What was that about?' Rose asked.

'Isabella!' the man called again.

Rose went to speak to the Doctor, but there was an empty space where he had been standing a moment ago. She looked at her daughter in the pram. 'I hate it when your daddy does that.'

'Who are those girls?' the Doctor asked the dark skinned man in the alleyway where he'd caught up with him.

'I thought everyone knew about the Calvierri School.'

'My first day here,' the Doctor told him. 'It's okay. Parents do all sorts of things to get their children into good schools. They move house, they change religion. So why are you trying to get her out?'

'Something happens in there. Something magical, something evil. My own daughter didn't recognise me. And the girl who pushed me away, her face, like an animal.'

'I think it's time I met this Signora Calvierri.'

['Oi! Mush, where've you gotten to?'] Rose asked in his head.

['Oh hi Sweetheart. I managed to catch up with Guido in the alley.']

['Who's Guido?']

['The man outside the Calvierri school who was looking for Isabella, his daughter.']

['The what school?']

['That building across the way. Look, never mind that. I'm going to try and get a look inside.']

['What for?']

['Ordinary man in the street . . . well, in the canal at least. Needing someone to stand up for him against the oppression of the ruling classes. Well, not standing in the canal of course. That would be daft . . . and wet.']

He felt her smile and roll her eyes. ['Just tell me where I can find you.']

['Hang on, I'll show you.'] He sent her a mental map of the route to Guido's house.

['Ooh, that's clever. I can see how you got there.']

['Make your way here, and I'll meet you later.']

The Doctor and Guido had made their way back to the Calvierri school, where Guido argued with the guards at the gates. 'You have my daughter. Isabella!'

'No, you're not coming in,' the guard told him. 'Just stop there. Look, we've told you . . .'

While Guido distracted the guards, the Doctor sneaked past and around to the water gate where he sonicked his way in.

'You have my daughter. Isabella! I demand you let me see my daughter.'

'Go away.'

'Isabella, it's me. It's your father.'

'We will arrest you.'

'Isabella!'

'Give it up, will you. Move off.'

The Doctor went down a stone staircase to a cellar with a vaulted roof. There was an ornate mirror on one wall opposite three doors.

The Doctor walked over to the mirror. 'Hello, handsome,' he said to himself as he straightened his swirly tie, lifted his chin and turned his head from side to side.

'Who are you?' a female voice asked behind him, which surprised him as he couldn't see anyone in the mirror.

He turned to see five young ladies behind him, and then turned back to the mirror. 'How are you doing that? I am loving it. You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls, and he was shorter. Will be shorter. I'm rambling.'

'I'll ask you again, signor. Who are you?'

'Why don't you check this out?' He took out his wallet and held it up in front of him.

The young ladies looked blankly at the wallet, which wasn't the reaction he was expecting. He looked at the wallet, and saw a picture of his first ever face.

'Library card. Of course, it's with . . . Down her cleavage. I need a spare, although I'll enjoy retrieving that later.' He looked back at the mirror, which still showed there was just him in the cellar, and then addressed the young ladies. 'Pale, creepy girls who don't like sunlight and can't be seen. Ha. Am I thinking what I think I'm thinking? But the city. Why shut down the city? Unless . . .'

'Leave now, signor, or we shall call for the Steward, if you are lucky.'

The girls teeth turned into needles. 'Ooh,' the Doctor said as they started to advance on him, hissing.

'Tell me the whole plan,' he suggested as he slowly backed up the stairs. 'One day that will work . . . Listen, I would love to stay here. This whole thing. I'm thrilled . . . Oh, this is Christmas.' He ran back up the stairs.

* * *

Rose was pushing Andrea through the narrow streets of Venice, slowly making her way to Guido's house. She smiled at a young woman who was selling flowers from a hand basket. She turned a corner, and heard the flower girl say "Flowers, signor?" to someone who must have been walking by.

Moments later, Rose heard a scream from behind her and turned the pram around and hurried back down the street. She turned the corner, and saw the man in the cape from the school courtyard. He was crouching over the flower girl, who had two puncture wounds in her neck. He looked up, saw Rose and bared his teeth, which were long and needle like. He hissed at Rose, raised his cape and hurried away.

Rose stooped down and quickly checked for a pulse as Martha had shown her. The woman was alive, so Rose took off in pursuit of the assailant. She chased him through the narrow streets until she came to an alleyway which opened straight onto the canal.

'What the hell?' she said to herself. Where had he gone to? She remembered Christopher Lee in those Dracula films, and looked up to the evening sky, wondering if he'd turned into a bat and flown away.

She made her way back through the streets towards Guido's house when she saw a familiar figure coming towards her. 'Doctor!'

They both spoke excitedly at the same time. 'I just met some vampires.'

'I just saw a vampire.'

'And creepy girls and everything,' he told her.

'Vampires,' Rose repeated. Zombies, werewolves and now vampires. In the "I-Spy book of mythical monsters", she'd got the set!

'Okay. So, first I need to get back in there somehow,' he said.

'Back in where?' Rose asked him.

'Back in the Calvierri school. Guido's daughter is still in there.'

'What, the school with the creepy girls? The creepy neck bitin', blood suckin' girls?'

'Yeah, that's the one,' he said with a smile. 'Come and meet my new friend.'

In Guido's home, he had a vellum map of Venice laid out on the table. 'As you saw, there's no clear way in. The House of Calvierri is like a fortress. But there's a tunnel underneath it, with a ladder and shaft that leads up into the house. I tried to get in once myself, but I hit a trapdoor.'

'You need someone on the inside,' Rose suggested.

'No,' the Doctor said abruptly.

Rose knew he hadn't been in her mind. 'You don't even know what I was gonna say.'

He didn't need to go into her mind. He knew his wife so well. 'Er, that we pretend you're an applicant for the school to get you inside, and tonight you come down and open the trapdoor to let us in.'

'Oh. So you do know what I was gonna say,' Rose said sheepishly.

'There is another option,' Guido told them, indicating some barrels in the corner. 'I work at the Arsenale. We build the warships for the navy.'

The Doctor sniffed the barrels. 'Gunpowder. Most people just nick stationery from where they work . . . Look, I have a thing about guns and huge quantities of explosives.'

'Yeah. He loves to blow things up,' Rose said with a lopsided smile.

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, and then thought about Henricks. And then about Sneed and Company Undertakers in Cardiff, although technically that wasn't him. And Number Ten Downing Street, Deffry Vale High School, Battersea Power Station in the alternate universe, the Family of Blood's space ship, Vesuvius, and a Sontaran space ship. Although again that wasn't really him.

'Er, not this time,' he said. 'This time we need stealth.'

'What do you suggest, then?' Guido asked. 'We wait until they turn her into an animal?'

'No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,' the Doctor said, thinking furiously. He slapped his forehead and pointed at Guido. 'The trapdoor, was it wood or metal?'

'It was a metal grating, but what's that got to do with anything? You can't open it from the outside.'

The Doctor reached inside his pocket, took out his sonic screwdriver and flipped it in the air. 'I think we have the solution.'

'What is that?' Guido asked.

'An inside from the outside lock opener,' he replied with a smile.

* * *

The Doctor was sitting on a throne in the House of Calvierri, having been delivered there by Guido in his Gondola. Rosanna, the head of the school entered the room. He'd worked out who Rosanna and the rest of the vampires really were.

'Long way from Saturnyne, aren't you . . . Sister of the Water?'

'No, let me guess. The owner of the psychic paper. Then I take it you're a refugee, like me?'

'I'll make you a deal. An answer for an answer. You're using a perception filter. It doesn't change your features, but manipulates the brainwaves of the person looking at you. But seeing one of you for the first time in, say, a mirror, the brain doesn't know what to fill the gap with, so leaves it blank, hence no reflection.'

'Your question?'

'Why can we see your big teeth?'

Rosanna laughed. 'Self preservation over rides the mirage. The subconscious perceives the threat and tries to alert the conscious brain.'

'Where's Isabella?' the Doctor asked her abruptly

'My turn. Where are you from?'

'Gallifrey.'

'You should be in a museum . . . Or in a mausoleum.'

'Why are you here?'

'We ran from the Silence. Why are you here?'

'Sightseeing. The Silence?'

'There were cracks. Some were tiny. Some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people, and through others we saw Silence and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours, and the crack snapped shut behind us. Saturnyne was lost.'

'So Earth is to become Saturnyne Mark Two?'

'And you can help me. We can build a new society here, as others have. What do you say?' she asked him seductively.

'Where's Isabella?'

'Isabella?' Rosanna asked with a frown.

'The girl who showed me the way out of the cellar.'

'Oh, deserters must be executed. Any general will tell you that. I need an answer, Doctor. A partnership. Any which way you choose.'

'I don't think that's such a good idea, do you? I'm a Time Lord. You're a big fish. Think of the children.'

Rosanna called for the steward. 'Carlo? You're right. We're nothing alike. I will bend the heavens to save my race, while you philosophise.'

A man dressed in black, entered the room.

'This ends today. I will tear down the House of Calvierri, stone by stone,' he told them as Carlo manhandled him. 'Take your hands off me, Carlo. And you know why? You didn't know Isabella's name. You didn't know Isabella's name.'

'Open the gates,' Carlo called to the guards.

The Doctor left and returned to Guido's house.

'Argh. I need to think,' the Doctor told Rose and Guido as he banged his head with his palm. 'Come on, brain. Think, think, think. Think.'

'If they're fish people, it explains why they hate the sun,' Rose said.

He put a finger on her lips. 'Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush.'

She ignored him. 'It's the school thing I don't understand.'

He put his hand over her mouth. 'Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush.'

'I say we take the fight to them,' Guido said.

'Ah, ah, ah,' the Doctor said, potting a finger to his lips for Guido to do the same.

'What?' Guido asked, and then put a finger to his lips.

'Ah. Her planet dies, so they flee through a crack in space and time and end up here.'

'Is that the same crack in Amy's wall and on the Byzantium?' Rose mumbled from behind his hand.

The Doctor pointed at her and smiled in confirmation. 'Then she closes off the city and, one by one, starts changing the people into creatures like her to start a new gene pool. Got it. But then what? They come from the sea. They can't survive forever on land, so what's she going to do? Unless she's going to do something to the environment to make the city habitable . . . She said, I shall bend the heavens to save my race. Bend the heavens . . . Bend the heavens? She's going to sink Venice.'

'She's going to sink Venice?' Guido asked in disbelief.

'And repopulate it with the girls she's transformed.'

'You can't repopulate somewhere with just women. You need men,' Guido said.

Rose suddenly realised where the vampire she'd followed had disappeared to. 'She's got blokes.'

'Where?' the Doctor asked her.

'In the canal. That one I chased disappeared at the canal. I thought he'd flown away like a bat, but he must have dropped into the water.'

'Only the male offspring survived the journey here. She's got ten thousand children swimming around the canals, waiting for Mum to make them some compatible girlfriends . . . Urgh . . . I mean, I've been around a bit, but really that's . . . that's eugh.'

There was a thump and a creak from upstairs, and the Doctor looked up to the ceiling. 'The people upstairs are very noisy.'

Guido looked up also. 'There aren't any people upstairs.'

'Y'know . . . I knew you were going to say that,' the Doctor said. He looked at Rose and Andrea. 'Did you know he was going to say that?'

'Is it the vampires?' Rose whispered nervously.

The Doctor took took a UV lamp out of his jacket. 'Like I said, they're not vampires. Fish from space,' he said as a window broke. Vampires gathered at the doors and windows.

'Aren't we on the second floor?' Rose asked.

The Doctor waved the lamp at them, then used his sonic screwdriver to reveal their true appearance.

'What's happened to them?' Guido asked.

'There's nothing left of them. They've been fully converted,' the Doctor told them. 'Blimey, fish from space have never been so buxom . . . Okay, move.'

Rose put Andrea in the hover-pram and sealed the lid. 'Come on.'

They hurried down the narrow staircase, when Guido stopped on the turn. 'Give me the lamp.'

Guido held back the vampires as they made it down to the outside door. Rose pushed Andrea outside, followed by the Doctor. 'Go, go, go, guys. Keep moving. Go, go, go.'

Guido stopped at the door, looked at the Doctor, and went back inside, slamming the door shut. 'Stay away from the door, Doctor,' he called from inside.

'No. Guido, What are you doing?'

Guido made his way back up the stairs towards his apartment, forcing the vampires back with the light.

'I'm not leaving you,' the Doctor called through the door. 'What are you doing?' He used the sonic screwdriver on the lock. 'Argh, bolted.'

He could hear Guido through the door. 'Come on. That's it, keep coming. Come on.'

'GUIDO!' the Doctor shouted. He had a horrible suspicion that Guido was going to do something incredibly brave, incredibly selfless, and incredibly stupid.

In his apartment, Guide picked up a lit candle and backed towards his collection of gunpowder barrels. The vampires moved forward. 'Come on. Come on. Come on.'

The Doctor ran away . . . very fast.

'We are Venetians!' Guido announced to the vampires and put the candle to the barrels.

KaBOOM! The Doctor was propelled through a stone archway, landing at Rose's feet. 'Ow!'

Rose's face appeared in his field of vision as she leaned over him. 'Are you okay?'

'Er . . . yeah. Well . . . I don't know. Well . . . probably.'

'What happened? Where's Guido?'

He lifted his head off the cobbles and looked at the smoking remains of the building. 'He was in there. He ignited the gunpowder. Pay back for his daughter I suppose.'

Clouds started to swirl over the city rapidly as gas spewed from a tower on the corner of the House of Calvierri, creating a violent thunderstorm.

'Rosanna's initiating the final phase,' the Doctor told Rose.

'We need to stop her. Come on,' Rose said, grabbing the handles of the pram and heading down the street. He shook his head and smiled as he set off after her, wondering when Shiver had actually become Shake.

In the Throne Room of the House of Calvierri, the Doctor opened the back of Rosanna's throne.

'You're too late,' Rosanna told him. 'Such determination, just to save one city. Hard to believe it's the same man that let an entire race turn to cinders and ash. Now you can watch as my people take their new kingdom.'

'The girls have gone, Rosanna.'

'You're lying,' she said uncertainly.

'Shouldn't I be dead, hmm?' She realised the truth of his words and stormed out of the room.

The Doctor called after her. 'Rosanna, please, help me. There are two hundred thousand people in this city.'

'So save them.'

'Get out. I need to stabilise the storm,' he told Rose.

'I'm not leaving you,' she replied as the house shook, knocking them off their feet. 'What was that?'

'Nothing. Bit of an earthquake.'

'An earthquake?'

'Manipulate the elements, it can trigger earthquakes. But don't worry about them.'

'No?'

'No. Worry about the tidal waves caused by the earthquake. Right, Rosanna's throne is the control hub but she's locked the programme, so, if you're staying, tear out every single wire and circuit in the throne. Go crazy. Hit it with a stick, anything. We need it to shut down and re-route control to the secondary hub, which I'm guessing will also be the generator.'

Rose started pulling fibre optic cables out of the throne, while the Doctor ran out of the room to the bell tower. He found a junction unit at the base of the tower which had a number of cables attached to it, one of which went up the tower.

He looked up to where the bells were rocking and ringing, and ran up the steps with his hands over his ears. 'Shut up. Shut up.' When he reached the top, he hung on to the clapper to stop it swinging. 'That's better.'

He started to climb up the outside to the big metal lightning conductor, with the help of the generator power cable. He reached the big brass globe at the top and looked down at the square below. He was reminded of another lightning conductor he'd climbed up. At least it wasn't as high as the Empire State building.

The Doctor opened the brass ball on top of the bell tower to reveal a clockwork mechanism spinning around. 'Oh. Oh. Okay.'

As a large cog wheel turned, the Doctor saw a tiny switch and flicked it to stop the mechanism. Instantly the rain ceased, the clouds vanished and birds started singing again. He could hear the people below cheering and applauding, and a familiar voice calling to him.

'You did it!' Rose cheered.

'Right. Time to find a Saturnyne Sister of the Water,' he said to himself as he climbed down the tower. He made his way through the House of Calvierri to a stone jetty on the canal outside. He saw Rosanna on the end of the jetty, dressed in just her white cotton shift.

'Rosanna!'

'One city to save an entire species,' she said sadly. 'Was that so much to ask?'

'I told you, you can't go back and change time,' he said as he cautiously approached. 'You mourn, but you live. I know, Rosanna . . . I did it.'

'Tell me, Doctor. Can your conscience carry the weight of another dead race? Remember us. Dream of us.'

She stepped off the jetty into the water.

'No! No!' the Doctor called out in despair as the water bubbled and foamed where her sons consumed her. He watched sadly as the water became calm and still once more, and turned his back on the canal. He made his way outside where he hugged and kissed Rose.

'Is it over then?' she asked him as he leaned over the pram and pulled funny faces at his daughter.

'Yeah,' he said sadly as he took the handles of the pram and started to make his way back to the market place. 'Another species that preferred to eradicate itself rather than accept my help.'

Rose linked her arm through his, not knowing what to say to comfort him. The Inspector walked by and gave them his deepest, most respectful bow.

They arrived at the TARDIS, and Rose unlocked the door. 'I'll put the kettle on,' she said as she went inside.

The Doctor pushed the pram through the door, when the busy market place suddenly fell silent. 'Rose, listen to that.'

Rose came back and popped her head out of the door. 'Er, what? All I can hear is silence.'

They looked around, and the all the people had vanished.

'Yeah. Exactly,' he said, with Rosanna's words echoing in his mind. "There were cracks. Through some we saw Silence and the end of all things."


	6. The Hungry Earth

**Chapter 11**

 **The Hungry Earth**

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS wearing a leather mini skirt, black boots and her union jack T-shirt with a leather jacket. She had Andrea in front of her in her pushchair.

'Behold, Rio,' the Doctor said as he followed her out in his blue suit and red converse.

'Nah, not really getting the sunshine carnival vibe,' she said as she looked around the graveyard that they had landed in.

'No? Ooh, feel that, though.' He stopped and looked at patches of bluish grass in the graveyard. 'What's that?' he asked, and then jumped up and down. 'Ground feels strange. Just me. Wait. That's weird.'

'Oi, stop trying to distract me. We're in the wrong place. It's freezin' and I've dressed for Rio. We are not stoppin' here. Love. You listenin' to me? It's a graveyard. You promised me a beach,' she complained, but he wasn't there. He'd gone around the church and was crouching down to examine the bluish grass more closely.

'Blue grass. Patches of it all around the graveyard. So, Earth, 2020-ish, wrong continent for Rio, I'll give you that, but it's not a massive overshoot.' He looked out over the valley to an old colliery, where a new high tech rig was assembled. 'Oh look. Big mining thing,' he said, trying to distract Rose from fact that she wasn't the girl from Ipanema.

'Oh, I love a big mining thing. See, way better than Rio.' He crouched down to speak to Andrea. 'Rio doesn't have a big mining thing.'

'We're not gonna have a look, are we?'

'Let's go and have a look. Come on, let's see what they're doing.'

They made their way out of the graveyard, and down the lane to the colliery. The Doctor read the notice on the gates. 'Restricted access. No unauthorised personnel. Hmm.'

He took out his sonic screwdriver, and sonicked the lock.

'That's breakin' and enterin',' Rose informed him.

'What did I break? Sonicking and entering. Totally different,' he said as he went through the gate. 'Come on, then.'

They went into a Victorian red brick building and walked down a passage. 'What about now? Can you feel it now?'

'Honestly, I've got no idea what you're on about.'

'The ground doesn't feel like it should.'

'It's 2020. Maybe how this ground feels is how it always feels.'

'Good thought, but no, it doesn't. Hear that, drill in start-up mode. Afterwaves of a recent seismological shift and blue grass.' He took a sample of the grass out of his jacket pocket and tasted it.

With an expression of disgust, he took the grass out of his mouth. He opened a door into a workshop. 'What's in here? Hello.'

'Who are you? What're you doing here?' an Asian woman asked them. She looked Rose up and down. 'And what're you wearing?'

'I dressed for Rio.'

The Doctor took out his psychic paper. 'Ministry of Drills, Earth and Science. New Ministry, quite big, just merged. It's lot of responsibility on our shoulders. Don't like to talk about it. What are you doing?'

'None of your business,' the Asian woman said.

The Doctor went over to a bank of monitors and scrutinized them. 'Where are you getting these readings from?'

'Under the soil,' the woman told him.

A man entered the workshop. 'The drill's up and running again . . . What's going on? Who are these people?'

Rose was stooping down, tickling Andrea's tummy. 'Rose, Andrea here in the push chair, and the Doctor. We're not stayin', are we, Doctor?'

The Doctor was examining a hole in the concrete floor. 'Why's there a big patch of earth in the middle of your floor?'

'We don't know. It just appeared overnight,' the woman said.

The Doctor went back to the monitors. 'Good. Right. You all need to get out of here very fast.'

'Why?' the woman asked.

'What's your name?'

'Nasreen Chaudhry.'

'Look at the screens, Nasreen. Look at your readings. It's moving.'

'Hey, that's specialised equipment. Get away from it,' the man ordered.

'What is?' Nasreen asked the Doctor.

Rose squatted down by the hole, where a mist was oozing out of the soil. 'Doctor, this steam, is that a good thing?'

'Shouldn't think so,' he told her. 'It's shifting when it shouldn't be shifting.'

'What shouldn't?' Nasreen asked.

The ground started to rumble. 'The ground, the soil, the earth, moving. But how? Why?' the Doctor mused.

'Earthquake?' Rose ventured.

'What's going on?' the man asked.

The Doctor answered his wife. 'Doubt it, because it's only happening under this room.'

Two more holes appeared in the floor, and then three more.

'It knows we're here. It's attacking. The ground's attacking us.'

'No, no that's not possible,' Nasreen said.

'Under the circumstances, I'd suggest . . . run!' the Doctor instructed.

They followed his instruction and ran for the door. More holes appeared and the man's foot went down one of them.

'Tony!' Nasreen called out.

'Stay back, Rose. Stay away from the earth,' the Doctor told her.

'Here, have the pushchair,' Rose said, and pushed it towards him. It glided across the room on an anti-gravity field, the wheels redundant when they left the concrete and floated over the holes. She jumped over a hole to help the man called Tony.

'It's okay,' she said as she grabbed his arm and supported him.

As she helped Tony, a hole opened under her feet, and she was suddenly up to her knees in soil. 'It's pullin' me down.'

'Rose!'

'Doctor, help me. Somethin's got me.'

The Doctor parked the pushchair by the door and ran around the holes. 'Stay away from it.'

Rose sank down to mid thigh level, the bottom of her skirt now touching the soil. 'Doctor, the ground's got my legs.'

The Doctor lay on the floor and wrapped his arms around her chest as she sank past her waist. 'I've got you.'

'Okay,' she said, kissing him on the lips. 'Thanks.'

Nasreen managed to pull Tony free, and led him to the door.

'Don't let go,' Rose told her husband.

'Never.'

'Doctor, what is it, and why is it doin' this?'

'Stay calm. Keep hold of my hand. Don't let go,' he told Rose, before looking over his shoulder. 'Your drill, shut it down. Go. Now!'

Nasreen and Tony ran out of the room.

'Can you get me out?' Rose asked him. Andrea had started to cry, distressed by what she could see happening to her mother.

'Rose, try and stay calm. If you struggle, it'll make things worse. Keep hold of my hand. I'm not going to let you go.'

Rose's grip started to fail. Now the adrenalin was wearing off, she didn't have the strength or endurance to maintain that kind of grip. 'Doctor, it's pullin' me down. Somethin's pullin' me.'

'Stay calm. Now, hold on till they can just shut down the drill.'

'I can't hold on! What's pullin' me? What is under the earth? I don't want to suffocate under there,' she said nervously.

'Rose, concentrate. Don't you give up.'

'Doctor? Love. Look after Andrea,' Rose said as she slowly sank past her chest and armpits into the soil.

'No. Rose!' He tried to dig with his hands as he saw the look of terror on his wife's face. 'Rose, NO!' he shouted as she disappeared below the soil. Andrea wailed in distress.

'No! No! No! No! No. No! No. No. No. No.'

Nasreen came back into the workshop, having shut down the drill. 'Where is she?'

'She's gone,' the Doctor said quietly. 'The ground took her.' Andrea wailed again.

'Is that what happened to Mo?' Tony asked him, referring to his friend and work colleague. 'Are they dead?'

The Doctor could still feel Rose in his head. She was unconscious, but alive. 'It's not quicksand. She didn't just sink. Something pulled her in. It wanted her.'

'The ground wanted her?' Nasreen asked with a puzzled frown.

'You said the ground was dormant. Just a patch of earth, when you first saw it this morning. And the drill had been stopped,' the Doctor summarised.

'That's right,' Tony confirmed.

'But when you re-started the drill, the ground fought back,' the Doctor said.

Nasreen was incredulous. 'So what, the ground wants to stop us drilling? Doctor, that is ridiculous.'

'I'm not saying that, and it's not ridiculous, I just don't think it's right,' the Doctor told her, and then realised what he had missed. He slapped his forehead and clapped his hands. 'Oh, of course. It's bio-programming.'

'What?' Nasreen asked.

'Bio-programming. Oh, it's clever. You use bio-signals to resonate the internal molecular structure of natural objects. It's mainly used in engineering and construction, mostly jungle planets, but that's way in the future and not here . . . What's it doing here?'

Nasreen frowned. 'Sorry, did you just say jungle planets?'

'You're not making any sense, man,' Tony told him.

'Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense,' the Doctor said in a hurt tone. 'You're just not keeping up. The earth, the ground beneath our feet, was bio-programmed to attack.'

'Yeah, even if that were possible, which, by the way, it's not,' Nasreen said. 'Why?'

'Stop you drilling,' the Doctor told her. 'Okay, so we find whatever's doing the bio-programming, we can find Rose. We can get her back. Shush, shush, shush. Have I gone mad? I've gone mad!'

'Doctor,' Nasreen said.

'Shush, shush. Silence. Absolute silence. You've stopped the drill, right?' he asked Nasreen.

'Yes.'

'And you've only got the one drill?'

'Yes.'

'You're sure about that?'

'Yes,' Tony confirmed.

'So, if you shut the drill down,' he said, lying on the floor and listening to it. 'Why can I still hear drilling? . . It's under the ground.'

'That's not possible!' Tony exclaimed.

The Doctor climbed to his feet, took out his sonic screwdriver, and sonicked the computer monitors.

'Oh no, what, what are you doing?' Nasreen asked in alarm.

'Hacking into your records. Probe reports, samples, sensors . . . Good. Just unite the data, make it all one big conversation. Let's have a look . . . So, we are here and this is your drill hole. Twenty one point zero zero nine kilometres. Well done.'

'Thank you,' Nasreen said with pride. 'It's taken us a long time.'

'Why here, though? Why'd you drill on this site?' the Doctor asked her.

'We found patches of grass in this area, containing trace minerals unseen in this country for twenty million years.'

'The blue grass? Oh, Nasreen. Those trace minerals weren't X marking the spot, saying dig here. They were a warning. Stay away. Because while you've been drilling down, somebody else has been drilling up.'

The deep sensor readings resolved themselves on the screen. 'Oh, beautiful. Network of tunnels all the way down.'

'No, no, we've surveyed that area.' Tony told him.

'You only saw what you went looking for.'

'What are they?' Nasreen asked.

'Heat signals. Wait, dual readings, hot and cold, doesn't make sense. And now they're moving. Fast. How many people live nearby?'

'Just my daughter and her family,' Tony told him. 'The rest of the staff travel in.'

'Grab this equipment and follow me,' the Doctor ordered as he grabbed the pushchair.

'Why? What're we doing?' Nasreen asked.

'That noise isn't a drill, it's transport. Three of them, thirty kilometres down. Rate of speed looks about a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Should be here in ooh, quite soon. Twelve minutes. Whatever bio-programmed the Earth is on its way up, now.'

'How can something be coming up when there's only the Earth's crust down there?' Tony asked the Doctor as they carried the equipment along the path towards the row of terraced houses.

'You saw the readings.'

'Who are you, anyway? How can you know all this?' Nasreen asked.

Slow red lightning forked across the sky. 'Whoa, did you see that?' she asked.

'No, no, no,' the Doctor said despairingly. He took out his catapult and picked up a stone, shooting it into the air. It hit an energy shield and vapourised. 'Energy signal originating from under the Earth. We're trapped. We can't get out and no one from the outside world can get in.'

'We're trapped, and something's burrowing towards the surface?' Nasreen wanted to confirm that she had understood the situation.

'Get everyone inside the church.'

In the porch of the church, Tony's daughter, Ambrose and his grandson, Elliot were waiting for him.

'Where's Mo? Is he with you?' Ambrose asked him.

Tony avoided answering her question. 'This flaming door. Always sticking. I thought you were having it fixed.'

'Dad!'

'Something's happened to him, hasn't it?' Elliot asked.

Inside the church, was a nice stained glass window behind the altar, but the small building was now just used for storage. Ambrose had listened to Naveen's explanation, while the Doctor fixed up the geologist's equipment.

'So we can't get out, we can't contact anyone, and something, the something that took my husband, is coming up through the Earth?'

'Yes,' the Doctor confirmed. 'If we move quickly enough, we can be ready.'

'No, stop. This has gone far enough. What is this?' Ambrose said, not believing a word of it.

'He's telling the truth, Love,' Tony told her.

'Come on. It's not the first time we've had no mobile or phone signals. Reception's always rubbish,' she said, trying to rationalise the situation.

'Look, Ambrose. We saw the Doctor's . . .' Nasreen look to the Doctor. 'Friend, partner, wife? Get taken.'

'My wife,' he said quietly. 'Rose . . . Her name is Rose.'

'We saw Rose get taken, okay? You saw the lightning in the sky. I have seen the impossible today, and the only person who's made any sense of it for me, is the Doctor.'

'Him?' Ambrose asked in disbelief.

'Me,' the Doctor said with a smile.

'Can you get my dad back?' Elliot asked the Doctor with a childlike directness. Everyone in the room stopped and looked at the Doctor for the answer.

'Yes. But I need you to trust me and do exactly as I say from this second onwards, because we're running out of time.'

Ambrose heard the way the Doctor talked to her son, and she believed him. 'So tell us what to do.'

'Thank you. We have eight minutes to set up a line of defence. Bring me every phone, every camera, every piece of recording or transmitting equipment you can find. Every burglar alarm, every movement sensor, every security light. I want the whole area covered with sensors.'

The Doctor felt Rose come back to consciousness.

['Urgh. Where am I,'] he heard her think.

['I was going to ask you that,'] he thought to her lovingly. ['Are you okay?']

['Apart from bein' in a glass coffin, yeah I'm fine. Is Andrea all right?']

['Yes. She's here in the church with me . . . missing her mum.']

'Let me out. Can anybody hear me? I'm alive in here! Let me out!' he heard her call out. He then felt her start to panic. ['Oh my God, I've been buried alive!']

['No Sweetheart. You are underground, but you're not buried,'] he reassured her.

'I know you're out there. My name is Rose Lungbarrowmas and you'd better get me the hell out of here or so help me I am gonna to kick your backside. And when my husband gets here . . . Well, then you'll be for it.' That was more like the Rose Tyler he knew, and then he felt the fear creep back. 'Please?'

Through her eyes, he saw a figure lean over her. "Shush" the blurred figure said.

'Did you just shush me? Did you just shush me?' ['He just shushed me!'] she thought indignantly.

He then felt her stress levels go through the roof. 'No, no, no. No, don't do that. No gas. No gas!' ['Doctor, they're gassin' me in this coffin!']

Rose coughed and started to pass out. The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was her husband, vowing that he would come and get her.

* * *

The equipment was quickly set up in the church, and the dots were still heading up towards the surface on the computer screens.

'Right, guys, we need to be ready for whatever's coming up,' the Doctor told them. 'I need a map of the village marking where the cameras are going.'

'I can't do the words,' Elliot explained. 'I'm dyslexic.'

'Oh, that's all right, I can't make a decent meringue. Draw like your life depends on it, Elliot.' The young lad smiled and hurried off to draw a map that would make the Doctor proud.

'Six minutes forty,' Tony announced from the workstation.

With just five minutes to go, the new CCTV array was ready. 'Works in quadrants. Every movement sensor and trip light we've got. If anything moves, we'll know,' Tony said.

'Good lad.' The Doctor crouched down in front of Andrea in the pushchair, and saw that she was dozing.

'She's beautiful,' Nasreen said, smiling at them. 'You and your wife must be very proud.'

The Doctor stood up. 'Yes we are, although I do wonder about the life we lead and how suitable it is for a child.'

Nasreen reached out and rubbed his arm to comfort him. 'Hey. All through history families have been living lives like yours. They tamed the Wild West, colonised Australia, and I bet every father wondered the very same thing.'

He nodded and smiled at her support. 'We've only got four minutes left. I need to assess our resources.'

'You'd better get a move on then,' Nasreen told him. 'She's asleep at the moment. Why don't you leave her here and I'll keep an eye on her till you get back.'

'Oh I couldn't impose.'

'It's no imposition. I've got to stay here anyway to watch the equipment, and the quicker you get this sorted, the quicker she gets her mother back,' she said as she stooped down and looked at Andrea.

The Doctor saw how she looked at his daughter. 'Do you have a family?'

'No, never found the time. Too busy trying to follow Arne Saknussemm to the centre of the Earth,' she joked, and then thought he was asking something else. 'Oh, but don't worry. I'm from a large Asian family, I got plenty of practice looking after my younger brothers and sisters.'

He gave her a lopsided smile. 'I'm not worried. It was the way you looked at Andrea . . . I see Rose look at her like that.'

Nasreen gave him an embarrassed smile. 'Go on. Get moving. She'll be fine.'

'Thank you.'

Outside Ambrose's house, the Doctor was examining the inside of her meals on wheels van.

'Oi! What're you doing?' Ambrose called to him.

'Resources. Every little helps. Meals on wheels. What've you got here, then. Warmer in the front, refrigerated in the back.'

Ambrose put an armful of a shotgun, croquet mallet, cricket bat and a tazer on the seat. 'Bit chilly for a hideout, mind.'

'What are those?' he asked her suspiciously.

'Like you say, every little helps.'

'No, no weapons. It's not the way I do things.'

'You said we're supposed to be defending ourselves.'

'Oh, Ambrose, you're better than this. I'm asking nicely. Put them away.' He waited for her to put the items back in the house, and then led her back to the church.

There were less than three and a half minutes left, when Elliot ran in with his map. 'Look at that,' the Doctor said in admiration. 'Perfect. Dyslexia never stopped Da Vinci or Einstein. It's not stopping you.'

'I don't understand what you're going to do,' Elliot told him.

'Two phase plan. First, the sensors and cameras will tell us when something arrives.' He took out his sonic screwdriver and held it up. 'Second, if something does arrive, I use this to send a sonic pulse through that network of devices. A pulse which would temporarily incapacitate most things in the universe.'

'Knock 'em out. Cool.'

The Doctor liked Elliot. He had spirit. 'Lovely place to grow up round here.'

'Suppose. I want to live in a city one day. Soon as I'm old enough, I'll be off.'

'I was the same where I grew up.'

'Did you get away?'

'Yeah.'

'Do you ever miss it?'

The Doctor paused and thought about home. 'So much.'

'Is it monsters coming? Have you met monsters before?'

'Yeah.'

'You scared of them?'

'Nah, they're scared of me.'

'Will you really get my dad back?'

'No question.'

'I left my headphones at home,' Elliot told him, and headed out of the door. The screen displayed one minute to go.

The Doctor went out to the graveyard to see how the sensor array was coming along. 'How're you doing?' he asked Ambrose, who was connecting a camcorder to a mobile phone.

'It's getting darker,' she noticed. 'How can it be getting dark so quickly?

'Shutting out light from within the barricade. Trying to isolate us in the dark. Which means it's here,' the Doctor said as the ground started to rumble.

Inside the church, Nasreen watched the targets move upwards. 'They're close to the surface now.'

She put her hand on Tony's and their eyes met. They realised at that touch that they had feelings for each other that they had not admitted to. They embraced and kissed.

Nasreen smirked. 'Tony.'

He smiled. 'Like you didn't know.'

The countdown on the screen reached zero and the dots stopped moving. In the porch, Ambrose tried to open the door. 'I can't open it. It keeps sticking. The wood's warped.' The Doctor tried pushing with his shoulder.

Tony went to the door when he heard them trying to get in, and pulled the metal ring door handle, as the Doctor and Ambrose shoved with their shoulders. Together they forced the door open and hurried inside, as the ground started shaking. Stacked objects began to tumble off the shelves.

'See if we can get a fix,' the Doctor said and then the lights exploded, and the computers went dead.

Tony inspected the equipment. 'No power.'

'It's deliberate,' the Doctor told him.

'What do we do now?' Nasreen asked.

Nothing. We've got nothing. They sent an energy surge to wreck our systems.'

'Is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt?' Nasreen enquired of the group.

'I'm fine,' Tony said.

'Me too,' Ambrose replied, and then there was a big rumble that shook the church.

'Doctor, what was that?' Nasreen asked him.

'It's like the holes at the drill station,' Tony told them.

'Is this how they happened?' Nasreen asked.

The Doctor lay on the stone floor and listened. 'It's coming through the final layer of Earth.'

'What is?' Nasreen asked him.

The building stopped shaking, and an ominous silence fell.

'The banging's stopped,' Tony observed.

Ambrose looked around the church. 'Where's Elliot . . ? Has anyone seen Elliot? Did he come in . . ? Was he in when the door was shut? Who counted him back in? Who saw him last?'

'I did,' the Doctor admitted quietly.

'Where is he?' Ambrose asked him.

'He said he was going to get headphones.'

'And you let him go?' she asked him accusingly. 'He was out there on his own?'

They heard a banging on the door. 'Mum! Grandpa Tony! Let me in!' Elliot called from outside.

'ELLIOT!' Ambrose shouted through the door.

'Let me in.'

'He's out there. Help me!' she said as she pulled at the metal ring handle.

'Open the door. Mum! There's something out here.'

'Push, Elliot,' Ambrose instructed. 'Push, Elliot. Give it a shove.'

'Mum. Hurry up.'

'Mum,' they heard him say quietly.

'Come on,' Tony complained to the stuck door before it finally opened.

Ambrose rushed outside. 'Elliot! Where is he? He was here. He was here. ELLIOT!'

'Ambrose, don't go running off!' the Doctor told her as she ran down the church path.

'Ambrose!' Tony called after her.

'Elliot, it's Mum,' Ambrose said as she moved through the graveyard. She found his headphones on the ground. 'Nooo!'

Something knocked her over and pinned her to the ground. 'Get off me!'

Tony grabbed man-shaped thing from behind and pulled it off his daughter. It wriggled free, and he shined his torch on a human sized reptilian biped. It flicked its extensible tongue which stung his neck, and then it ran away.

'Dad!' Ambrose cried.

'What happened?' the Doctor asked urgently.

'My dad's hurt,' she told him.

'Get him into the church now.'

'Elliot's gone,' Ambrose said. 'They've killed him, haven't they?'

'I don't think so. They've taken three people when they could've just killed them up here. There's still hope, Ambrose. There is always hope.' He was saying that not only for her, but for himself as well.

'Then why have they taken him?'

'I don't know. I'll find Elliot, I promise. But first I've got to stop this attack. Please, get inside the church.'

'Come on, Dad.'

'No, I'll be fine Love. You go inside. I'm going to help the Doctor catch the thing that took my grandson.'

The Doctor donned a pair of infra red sunglasses, and spotted a dark shape moving through the bushes. 'Cold blood. I know who they are,' he said to himself.

He went to the van and got the CO2 fire extinguisher. Something hissed nearby and he let it off, causing whatever it was to scream. Tony burst out of the back of the van, and he and the Doctor bundled it inside.

'We got it!' Tony exclaimed.

'Defending the planet with meals on wheels,' the Doctor joked. Their high five was interrupted by another rumble.

'What was that?'

'Sounds like they're leaving.'

'Without this one?'

The energy dome became transparent, letting the sunshine in. 'Looks like we scared them off,' Tony said.

'I don't think so. Now both sides have hostages.'

They drove back to the church, and secured the prisoner in the crypt. 'So, I think I've met these creatures before. Different branch of the species, mind, but all the same. Let's see if our friend's thawed out.'

'Are you sure? By yourself?' Tony asked.

'Very sure.'

'But the sting?'

'Venom gland takes at least twenty four hours to recharge. Am I right? I know what I'm doing. I'll be fine.'

Tony left, and their prisoner moved out of the shadows, her chains rattling.

'I'm the Doctor. I've come to talk. I'm going to remove your mask' he told the humanoid reptile. The mask looked like a reptile face, with very big black eyes. He removed it gently.

'You are beautiful,' he told her. 'Remnant of a bygone age on planet Earth. And by the way, lovely mode of travel. Geothermal currents projecting you up through a network of tunnels. Gorgeous. Mind if I sit?' He sat down on a wooden chair.

'Now. Your people have my wife. I want her back. My daughter wants her mother back. It would be better if you gave her back willingly, because believe me, you do not want to make me go and get her.'

With that said, he tried to elicit some information. 'Why did you come to the surface? What do you want? Oh, I do hate a monologue. Give us a bit back. How many are you?'

'I'm the last of my species,' the prisoner said quietly.

'Really. No. Last of the species. The Klempari Defence. As an interrogation defence, it's a bit old hat, I'm afraid.'

'I'm the last of my species,' she repeated.

'No! You're really not,' he said forcefully. 'Because I'm the last of my species and I know how it sits in a heart. So don't insult me . . . Let's start again. Tell me your name.'

'Alaya.'

'How long has your tribe been sleeping under the Earth, Alaya? It's not difficult to work out. You're three hundred million years out of your comfort zone. Question is, what woke you now?'

'We were attacked.'

'The drill,' he realised.

'Our sensors detected a threat to our life support systems. The warrior class was activated to prevent the assault. We will wipe the vermin from the surface and reclaim our planet.'

'Do we have to say vermin? They're really very nice. I even married one.'

'Primitive apes.'

'Extraordinary species. You attack them, they'll fight back. But, there's a peace to be brokered here. I can help you with that.'

'This land is ours. We lived here long before the apes.'

'Doesn't give you automatic rights to it now, I'm afraid. Humans won't give up the planet.'

'So we destroy them.'

'You underestimate them.'

'You underestimate us.'

'One tribe of homo reptilia against six billion humans? You've got your work cut out.'

'We did not initiate combat, but we can still win.'

'Tell me where my wife is. Give us back the people who were taken.'

'No.'

'I'm not going let you provoke a war, Alaya. There'll be no battle here today.'

'The fire of war is already lit. A massacre is due.'

'Not while I'm here.'

'I'll gladly die for my cause. What will you sacrifice for yours?'

Back in the church, the Doctor told them his plan.

'You're going to what?' Tony asked in disbelief.

'I'm going to go down below the surface, to find the rest of the tribe, to talk to them.'

'You're going to negotiate with these aliens?' Ambrose asked, as disbelieving as Tony.

'They're not aliens. They're Earth-liens. Once known as the Silurian race, or, some would argue, Eocenes, or Homo Reptilia. Not monsters, not evil.' He thought about that before continuing. 'Well, only as evil as you are . . . The previous owners of the planet, that's all. Look, from their point of view, you're the invaders. Your drill was threatening their settlement. Now, the creature in the crypt. Her name's Alaya. She's one of their warriors, and she's my best bargaining chip. I need her alive. If she lives, so do Elliot and Mo and Rose, because I will find them. While I'm gone, you four people, in this church, in this corner of planet Earth, you have to be the best of humanity.'

'And what if they come back?' Tony asked. 'Shouldn't we be examining this creature? Dissecting it, finding its weak points?'

The Doctor was horrified. 'No dissecting, no examining. We return their hostage, they return ours, nobody gets harmed. We can land this together, if you are the best you can be. You are decent, brilliant people. Nobody dies today. Understand?'

Nasreen applauded his speech, and followed the Doctor as he grabbed the pushchair and went to the TARDIS.

'No, sorry, no. What are you doing?' he asked her.

'Coming with you, of course. You need a babysitter. What is it, some kind of transport pod?'

'Sort of, but you're not coming with me.'

'He's right. You're not,' Tony told her.

'I have spent all my life excavating the layers of this planet, and now you want me to stand back while you head down into it? I don't think so,' she said.

'I don't have time to argue. Andrea will be perfectly safe inside. Safest place in the universe.'

'I thought we were in a rush.'

'It'll be dangerous,' he said, trying to discourage her.

'Oh, so's crossing the road.'

He remembered Rose using that line on her mum once. He was desperate to get going and get Rose back. 'Oh, for goodness sake. All right, then. Come on.'

'Hey. Come back safe,' Tony told her.

'Of course,' she said as she stepped into the TARDIS.

'Welcome aboard the TARDIS,' the Doctor said. 'Now, don't touch anything . . . Very precious.'

'No way!' Nasreen exclaimed, open mouthed in wonder. 'But, but that's . . . this is fantastic. What does it do?'

'Everything. I'm hoping, if we're going down, that barricade won't interfere.'

They got knocked off their feet.

'Did you touch something?' the Doctor asked her accusingly.

'No. Isn't this what it does?'

'I'm not doing anything. We've been hijacked. I can't stop it. They must've sensed the electromagnetic field. They're pulling the TARDIS down into the Earth.'

The TARDIS came to a sudden stop, throwing the Doctor and Nasreen to the floor. 'Where are we?' Nasreen asked.

'Give me a minute to put Andrea to bed in the nursery and I'll find out.'

Loose soil was raining down, gently, from a hole above the TARDIS as they stepped out into a tunnel. 'Looks like we fell through the bottom of their tunnel system. Don't suppose it was designed for handling something like this,' he said.

'How far down are we?' Nasreen asked.

'Oh, a lot more than twenty one kilometres.'

'So why aren't we burning alive?'

'Don't know,' he said, enjoying the fact that there was something he didn't know. 'Interesting, isn't it?'

'It's like this is everyday to you.'

'Not every day . . . Every other day.'

They walked down a tunnel as the Doctor talked. 'We're looking for a small tribal settlement probably housing around a dozen Homo Reptilia? Maybe less.'

Nasreen went down a side passage and stopped. 'One small tribe,' she called to him.

'Yeah.'

'Maybe a dozen?'

'Ah,' the Doctor said as he came and stood beside her. They were looking down from the platform they were on, over a vast city filled chamber. 'Maybe more than a dozen. Maybe more like an entire civilisation living beneath the Earth.


	7. Cold Blood

**Chapter 12**

 **Cold Blood**

Rose woke up strapped to a near vertical examination table. She struggled against the restraints to see if there was any give.

'Don't struggle,' a man strapped to a table next to her whispered. 'Close your eyes and don't struggle.'

'What? Where am I? Why can't I move my body?'

'Decontamination, they call it . . . They did it to me while I was conscious.'

'Okay, you're freakin' me out now. Did what? Who did?'

'Dissected me.' He nodded downwards to a scar that ran from his sternum to his naval.

'No!' Rose said in alarm.

['ROSE! Sweetheart, you're awake,'] the Doctor thought in her head.

'He's coming. I'm sorry. I wish I could help you,' the man beside her said.

A white coated reptilian scientist approached with a high-tech scalpel.

['Oh God. Right now I wish I wasn't. Where are you?']

['It's some sort of underground garden.']

'Don't you come near me with that,' she told the lizard.

['Rose? What's going on?']

The scientist started to make audio notes. 'From the clothing, the human female appears to be more resistant to the cold than the male.'

'I dressed for Rio!' she told him angrily. ['This lizard guy wants to cut me open.']

'Leave her alone. You've got me,' the man called out gallantly.

['NO!'] The Doctor called out in her head. ['Rose, I'm coming for you. Just hold on.']

The reptile took a disc out of his pocket and pressed a button which clamped Rose's wrists even tighter. 'Argh.' ['Hold on how exactly?']

['I don't know. Spit? Throw expletives at him. Anything. Just try and delay him till I get there.']

'Decontamination complete. Commencing dissection.'

['No, no, no, no, no. Please.'] Rose closed her eyes and prepared for the pain of the first cut.

['Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested. Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested,'] the computer announced over the speaker system.

['Whoops!'] the Doctor thought. ['I seem to have set off an alarm. Clumsy me.']

['God, I love you!'] The scientist turned in the direction of the announcement, and Rose felt his pocket brush against her fingers. The pocket with the disk in it.

The scientist hurried out of the laboratory. 'Yeah. And stay out,' she shouted after him. She looked down at her hand and pressed one of the buttons on the disk that she had palmed out of the scientist's pocket.

She freed herself from the table, and then moved over to the man and freed him too.

'Ah ah!' she exclaimed.

'How did you get that?'

'You never picked a lizard man's pocket?' she asked him.

Being brought up on the Powell Estate, she'd learned a few "life" skills that she wasn't particularly proud of. But when you'd had your pocket picked and your purse snatched, you learned how it was done so that it wasn't done to you again.

'Come on, before he gets back,' Rose said, and moved out of the laboratory.

As they walked along a rock hewn passage, Rose felt the Doctor drift out of consciousness. "Oh great!" she thought to herself.

They came to a door that closed off the tunnel, and Rose found a wall panel to the side. She pressed the large button, and the door slid open. 'That creature, do you think it was an alien? Any more of them, do you think? Do you think the Earth's been invaded?' the man who was named Mo asked.

'I don't know. But I know someone who could have some answers. We need to find him.' Rose saw another door to her left. 'I wonder where this leads.'

'Maybe it's a way out of here.'

She pressed the button on the wall panel, and the screen lit up, but the door didn't slide open. Through a window in the door, they saw a light come on in the area beyond the door. Mo looked through the small window. 'Oh, my God, no!'

'What is it?' Rose asked.

'It's my son. It's Elliot. What've they done to him? He's in there. We have to get him out. Elliot? Elliot, its Dad.'

['Access denied. Unauthorised genetic imprint,'] the computer told them.

'Stop,' she told him. 'Seriously, we can't get in.'

'That's my boy in there.'

Rose could sympathise with him. At the moment, she really wanted to hug her daughter. And then she realised the Doctor was unconscious. Where was their daughter? She needed to calm the rising panic so that she could reach out to her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed as she breathed out. She felt her daughter's consciousness and realised Andrea was in the TARDIS. Rose relaxed; it was the safest place in the universe.

'These screens, they're monitorin' somethin',' Rose told him. 'I think they're vital signs. Heartbeats, pulses. Why else would he be wired up? He's still alive.'

'All right. We find weapons, get that creature from the lab and force it to release Elliot, yeah?'

Rose knew that wasn't the way to do it. What they needed to do was find the Doctor. 'Yeah. Trust me. We'll get him out.'

They continued through the tunnel system, and came to a wider tunnel that had glass fronted chambers on each side. 'These chambers are all over the city,' Rose observed. She touched a control on the wall, and two of the chambers lit up. They contained reptiles.

'Urgh. Turn it off, quick. They're not moving,' Mo said.

Rose switched them off, but then thought about it. 'Maybe they're asleep. Let's have another look.'

'No, Rose, don't . . . Don't.'

But Rose had already opened the chamber and was inside, circling the reptile.

'Rose, what are you doing? Get out of there.'

'Some sort of suspended animation,' she told him. She stooped down and looked at something that resembled a round manhole cover. 'I wonder what these are. The Doctor would know. The Doctor always knows.'

'Hey, look,' Mo said, looking up at the top of the chamber where there were shafts heading straight up.

'Wait. I've got it,' she told him. 'It's how they came up to the surface. Some sort of powered transport discs. It's our way out of here.'

Mo took a high tech looking gun off one of the reptiles. 'Even better. Weapons. Come on, now we can fight back.'

Rose reluctantly took the weapon off the other reptile. Okay, they had disarmed two of the reptiles, but there were plenty more out there, and they had just made themselves legitimate targets. They backed out of the chamber, and Rose switched it off.

'Which way now?' Mo asked her.

Rose nodded down the tunnel. 'Door at the end.'

'Are you sure?'

'No.'

The door at the end led to a balcony overlooking a vast chamber, containing reptilian warriors as far as the eye could see.

'Wow!' Mo exclaimed.

'Yeah.'

'We don't stand a chance.'

'We have to find the Doctor.'

* * *

The Doctor and Nasreen travelled along a walkway, through an underground arboretum. 'This place is enormous and deserted. The majority of the race are probably still asleep. We need to find Rose. Looking for heat signature anomalies.'

'But Doctor, how can all this be here?' Nasreen asked. 'I mean, these plants.'

['No!'] The Doctor heard Rose call out in his head.

['ROSE! Sweetheart, you're awake.']

['Oh God. Right now I wish I wasn't. Where are you?']

'Er, must be getting closer to the centre of the city,' he said to Nasreen distractedly. ['It's some sort of underground garden.']

'Don't you come near me with that,' he heard Rose say to someone.

['Rose? What's going on?']

'You're sure this is the best way to enter?' Nasreen asked.

'I dressed for Rio!' she said angrily. ['This lizard guy wants to cut me open.']

['NO! Rose, I'm coming for you. Just hold on,'] he thought to her. He then stepped up his pace as he answered Nasreen. 'Front door approach. Definitely. Always the best way.'

'Argh.' ['Hold on how exactly?']

['I don't know. Spit? Throw expletives at him. Anything. Just try and delay him till I get there.']

['No, no, no, no, no. Please,'] Rose called out in her head.

An alarm started to blare out. ['Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested. Area Seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested,'] the computer announced over the speaker system.

['Whoops!'] The Doctor thought to Rose. ['I seem to have set off an alarm. Clumsy me.'] 'Apart from the back door approach,' he continued saying to Nasreen.

['God, I love you!']

'That's also good. Sometimes better.'

['Hostile life forms detected area seventeen,'] the computer said.

'Doctor,' Nasreen said uncertainly as reptilian warriors approached from both sides.

['Hostile life forms detected area seventeen.']

'We're not hostile. We're not armed. We're here in peace.'

A warrior stepped forward and gassed them with its weapon.

When the Doctor regained consciousness, he was shackled to an examination couch just as Rose had been, and was being scanned by the same white coated reptile. Oh, and it hurt.

'Argh.'

'How can they have escaped?' a red jacketed female reptile asked angrily. 'This proves all prisoners should remain under military guard.'

'I'm sure you'd prefer to be in charge of everything and everyone, Restac, but we rank the same,' the white coated reptile said. 'Is there any word from Alaya?'

'No.'

'It's fine to show concern, you know. She's part of your gene-chain,' the white coated reptile told her kindly. 'I'm decontaminating now.'

He activated a control. The Doctor watched in alarm. 'Decontamination? No, no, no.' He convulsed in pain. 'No! Argh!'

'It's all right, it won't harm you,' the white coated reptile told him mistakenly. 'I'm only neutralising all your ape bacteria.'

'I'm not an ape. Look at the scans. Two hearts. Totally different. Totally not ape! Remove all human germs; you remove half the things keeping me alive.'

The white coated reptile turned off the decontamination machine. 'No, complete the process,' Restac demanded.

'Oh, that's much better, thanks. Not got any celery, have you? No. No, not really the climate. Tomatoes, though. You'd do a roaring trade in those. I'm the Doctor.' He looked to his left, and saw Nasreen being woken up. 'Oh, and there's Nasreen. Good.'

'Oh, a green man,' Nasreen noticed as she woke up.

'Hello. Who are you?' the Doctor asked the female reptile in the red jacket.

'Restac, Military commander.'

'Oh dear, really? There's always a military, isn't there?'

'Your weapon was attacking the oxygen pockets above our city,' the white coated reptile told him.

'Oxygen pockets, lovely,' the Doctor said. 'Ooh, but not so good with an impending drill. Now it makes sense.'

'Where is the rest of your invasion force?' Restac asked.

'Invasion force. Me and lovely Nasreen? No. We came for the humans you took. And to offer the safe return of Alaya. Oh wait, you and she, what is it, same genetic source? Of course you're worried, but don't be, she's safe.'

'You claim to come in peace, but you hold one of us hostage.'

The Doctor noticed that the situation was escalating out of control. 'Wait, wait, we all want the same thing here.'

'I don't negotiate with apes. I'm going to send a clear message to those on the surface.'

'What's that?' he asked hesitantly.

'Your execution.'

'Yes,' he said quietly. He really didn't want to hear that.

The Doctor and Nasreen were being led through the gardens under escort with their hands cuffed behind them. 'These must be the only ones awake. The others must still be in hibernation,' he told Nasreen.

'So, why did they go into hibernation in the first place?'

'Their astronomers predicted the planet heading to Earth on a crash course. They a built life underground and put themselves to sleep for millennia in order to avert what they thought was the apocalypse, when in reality it was the moon coming into alignment with the Earth.'

'How can you know that?' the white coated reptile asked.

'Long time ago, I met another tribe of Homo Reptilia. Similar, but not identical.'

'Others of our species have survived?' Restac asked hopefully.

The Doctor hesitated. 'The humans attacked them. They died . . . I'm sorry.'

'A vermin race,' Restac declared angrily.

They left the rough walled tunnel, and entered a large, beautifully crafted room. There was a long, stone table running down the middle of the room, with tiers of stone benches along the walls.

'You're not authorised to do this,' the white coated reptile told Restac.

'I am authorised to protect the safety of our species while they sleep,' she replied.

'Oh, lovely place. Very gleaming,' the Doctor said in appreciation.

'This is our court and our place of execution.'

Rose suddenly appeared from the far end of the room. 'Let them go.'

'Rose. There's a girl to rely on,' the Doctor said.

Mo appeared from the doorway they had just entered from. 'Yer covered both ways, so don't try anythin' clever, sweetheart.'

Nasreen looked behind her. 'Mo!'

'Now let 'em go, or I shoot,' Rose warned Restac, who ignored her and started to move towards her. 'I'm warnin' ya.'

In a lightning fast move, Restac snatched the gun out of Rose's hands. The speed and force of the move threw Rose to the floor.

'Don't you touch her!' the Doctor called out.

Again Restac ignored the advice. 'And you,' she said to Mo.

Mo hesitated. He wasn't a killer, and he couldn't bring himself to use the weapon. The reptiles took the gun off him.

'All right, Restac, you've made your point,' the white coated reptile told her.

'This is now a military tribunal. Go back to your laboratory, Malohkeh.'

Rose climbed to her feet and smoothed down her leather skirt as she looked around. A look of concern spread across her face. 'Doctor? Where's Andrea?'

He smiled at her. 'She's safe and sound in the TARDIS.'

'What? On her own?' she asked in disbelief.

'The apes will be silent!' Restac demanded.

'Or what?' Rose asked with her hands on her hips. 'What'cha gonna do? Shoot us before you execute us? Now I'll be with ya in a minute. This is important.' She turned back to the Doctor.

Restac glowered at her. How dare an ape answer her back? But Rose was ignoring her. 'You left our seven month old daughter on her own in the TARDIS?'

The Doctor gave her an uncertain smile. 'Well, yes. It's the safest place in the universe.'

'Yeah, but who's lookin' after her? Who's feedin' her when she gets hungry? Who's changin' her nappy when she fills it?' Rose then had a worrying thought. 'Oh God. What if somethin' happens to us? What'll happen to her?'

'WHEN something happens to you,' Restac said menacingly. 'Not IF.'

Rose turned and glared at Restac, flecks of gold flashed in her hazel eyes. 'Button it sister! I've told yer I'll be with ya in a minute.'

Rose's voice seemed to resonate inside Restac's mind, and she hesitated. For some reason, the look in the eyes of this feisty ape scared her. And for a fearless warrior, that was an uncomfortable sensation. Rose didn't know this though. She had no more control of the wolf inside, than the wolf had of the human outside. It was just something that happened when it needed to.

Rose turned to the Doctor and raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to tell her that their daughter would be safe. 'Well,' he started, and looked at Restac. 'IF anything happens to us, the TARDIS will sense it and take Andrea to one of the most recent passengers. Possibly Martha or Donna, but I'd put my money on Sarah Jane as she's known her the longest.'

The gold flecks in her eyes faded as she calmed down. 'Oh, well, that's all right then. It still don't feed her and change her nappy at the moment, but it is reassurin'.'

The feeling of unease left Restac, and she looked at Malohkeh. 'Are you still here? I thought I told you to return to your laboratory.'

Malohkeh hissed at her, and she hissed back as they glared at each other. 'This isn't the way,' he said quietly.

'Prepare them for execution,' Restac ordered

Rose was being shackled to a large, stone column. 'Okay, sorry. As rescues go, didn't live up to its potential.'

'I'm glad you're okay,' the Doctor said as he was shackled to an adjacent column.

'Me too . . . Lizard men, though.'

'Homo Reptilia. They occupied the planet before humans. Now they want it back.'

'After they've wiped out the human race,' Nasreen added as she was shackled next to the Doctor.

'Right. Preferred it when I didn't know, to be honest,' Rose told her, and her thoughts went to her daughter, all alone in the TARDIS. She was so worked up that she couldn't get her mind under control to sense her daughter. 'I hope Andrea's all right.'

'She'll be fine,' the Doctor assured her. 'I'll tune in and have a look for you,'

He gazed off into the distance as he reached out to his daughter, and then a frown furrowed his considerable brow. Rose saw the expression, and could feel some confusion coming from him.

'What? What's wrong? Somethin's happened to Andrea ain't it?' She asked him with a sense of foreboding. She struggled against the handcuffs behind her back, desperate to get to the TARDIS and her daughter.

'No . . . No, there's nothing wrong as such,'

She stopped struggling. 'As such?'

'Well, something is happening . . . She's having her nappy changed.'

'What? But how . . ? Who?'

'I have absolutely no idea.'

* * *

Andrea roused from her little nap, and noticed that her parents weren't near by. All she could feel was the warm glow of the TARDIS in her mind. Her furry friend Mr. Tedopoulos, whom she shared her cot with, was asleep again by the side of her. She suspected that they were on opposite shifts, so that when she was asleep, it was his turn to be awake.

She had often seen her mummy talking to him when he was asleep, and it seemed that they had known each other for a very long time. She had that hollow feeling in her belly, and gave the gurgling call that she normally gave that her parents heard as "I'm hungry". Today though, it didn't elicit the usual response of one of them appearing in her room to pick her up and take her to the kitchen to feed her.

She used the railing of the cot to pull herself into a sitting position, and looked at the door of the nursery. Her face broke into a smile, as the door opened, and two white basketball sized droids rolled into the room. They stopped at the side of the cot, and two iris ports opened in the first ball. She watched with interest as two flexible cables emerged from the ports, which had three finger-like pincers on the end of each one.

A port opened on the top of the second ball, and a red plastic bowl appeared. One of the three fingered pincers held a plastic spoon and scooped out the pureed meal and manoeuvred it through the railings. Andrea opened her mouth like a baby bird, and the spoon deftly delivered its contents to the target.

She quickly devoured the contents of the red bowl, which retracted inside the ball, to be replaced by a yellow one containing a banana dessert. Finally, a feeding cup appeared, and Andrea took the offered vessel and drank the Shan Shen apricot juice. One arm took the empty cup, whilst the other one gently supported her across her shoulders. The first arm then supported her across the front of her chest as the cot started to vibrate.

Andrea started to chuckle, and produced a long note which made her voice warble. She was startled when, like a bottle of fizzy pop being shaken, the gas in her stomach started to rise and she released an enormous belch.

The arms lay her down on the pillow, and two more arms appeared from the first ball, where they took off her dirty nappy, cleaned her bottom with some wet wipes, put a clean nappy underneath, applied some cream with a ball of cotton wool, dusted her with some powder, and fastened the new nappy. The cot started to sway as the nursery filled with the gentle strains of a Gallifreyan lullaby that would have made the Doctor weep with the memory of it.

With the two droid's tasks completed, the first droid high three'd itself, and they rolled to the corner of the room and went into standby mode. A holographic projection of the Kasterborous constellation slowly revolved above Andrea's head as she hugged Mr. Tedopoulos, and gently drifted off to sleep, feeling her father's reassuring presence in her mind.

* * *

Ambrose appeared in the doorway of the courtroom. 'Here they are,' the Doctor said.

'Mum!' Elliot cried out, and ran into her arms.

The group had been released from their shackles after Malohkeh had revived the Silurian leader, Eldane to take charge of the situation and order Restac to stand down her troops.

Tony walked into the room, carrying a body wrapped in a red blanket.

'Something's wrong,' the Doctor noticed.

'Doctor, what's he carryin'?' Rose asked.

'No. Don't do this. Tell me you didn't do this,' he pleaded.

Tony laid Alaya's body on the floor.

'What did you do?' the Doctor asked him angrily.

'It was me. I did it,' Ambrose admitted.

'Mum?' Elliot said uncertainly.

'I just wanted you back,' she tried to explain. Elliot shrugged off her hands and went over to his father.

The Doctor addressed Eldane. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know. You have to believe me, they're better than this.'

'This is our planet!' Ambrose claimed.

'We had a chance here,' the Doctor told her.

'Leave us alone!' she said to Eldane.

'In future, when you talk about this, you tell people there was a chance but you were SO MUCH LESS than the best of humanity,' the Doctor said.

At that moment, Restac and her troops marched into the courtroom. 'My sister.' She walked up to the blanket covered corpse on the floor and crouched down to uncover the head.

'Ohhhh,' she cried mournfully. 'And you want us to trust these apes, Doctor?'

'One woman,' the Doctor said. 'She was scared for her family. She is not typical.'

'I think she is.'

Rose stood in front of Ambrose. 'Of a mother defendin' her child, she is very typical,' Rose told Restac. 'Don't have any kids of yer own, do ya? Cos if ya did, you'd understand what that means. Alaya made a fundamental mistake; she took a child from a mother. When that happens, mothers don't think. Their maternal instincts kick in and they react.'

'One person let us down, but there is a whole race of dazzling, peaceful human beings up there. You were building something here. Come on. An alliance could work,' the Doctor said.

'It's too late for that, Doctor,' Ambrose said guiltily.

He looked at her suspiciously. 'Why?'

Ambrose 'Our drill is set to start burrowing again in.' She consulted a stop watch. 'Fifteen minutes.'

'What?' Nasreen asked in disbelief.

'What choice did I have?' Tony said sadly. 'They had Elliot.'

'Don't do this. Don't call their bluff,' the Doctor warned them.

Ambrose pleaded with Restac. 'Let us go back. And you promise to never come to the surface ever again. We'll walk away, leave you alone.'

Restac glared at her with contempt. 'EXECUTE HER!' The soldiers raised their weapons.

'NO!' The Doctor grabbed Ambrose and pulled her out of the line of fire. 'Everybody, back to the lab. RUN!'

'Execute all the apes,' Restac ordered.

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and sent out a resonant pulse. The Silurian weapons exploded in their hands. 'This is a deadly weapon. Stay back.' He turned quickly in circles, sending the pulse out to all the weapons.

A soldier had crawled along one of the stone benches and lashed its tongue at the Doctor. He saw it at the last moment and managed to duck as he ran into the tunnel.

'Take everyone to the lab,' he called after them as energy bolts hit the walls. 'I'll cover you,' he told Rose as he reached the fleeing group.

She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then hustled everyone to continue. 'Go. Go.'

The Silurians ran around the bend, and he sonicked their weapons. 'Ah, ah, Stop right there or I'll use my very deadly weapon again. One warning, that's all you get. If there can be no deal, you go back into hibernation. All of you, now.' Restac glared at him, panting for breath.

'This ends here,' he told her.

'No. It only ends with our victory,' she said defiantly.

His voice went quiet and cold. 'Like I said, one warning.' He zapped the remaining weapons and ran.

The Doctor sealed the door of the laboratory as he entered. 'Elliot, you and your dad keep your eyes on that screen. Let me know if we get company.' He looked at Ambrose's stopwatch and gave it to his wife. 'Rose, keep reminding me how much time I haven't got.'

'Okay. Um, er, twelve minutes till drill impact.'

He turned his attention to Tony. 'Tony Mack. Sweaty forehead, dilated pupils. What are you hiding?'

Tony pulled open his shirt to show green veins all across his chest.

'Tony, what happened?' Nasreen asked with concern.

'Alaya's sting. She said there's no cure. I'm dying, aren't I?' he asked the Doctor.

The Doctor scanned him with his sonic screwdriver and fed the results into the Silurian console. 'You're not dying, you're mutating.'

'How can I stop it?'

'Decontamination program,' the Doctor said. 'Might work . . . Don't know. Eldane, can you run the program on Tony?'

'Doctor, shed load of those creatures coming our way,' Mo called out. 'We're surrounded in here.'

'So, question is, how we do stop the drill given we can't get there in time? Plus, also, how do we get out, given that we're surrounded? Nasreen, how do you feel about an energy pulse channelled up through the tunnels to the base of the drill?'

'To blow up my life's work?'

'Yes . . . Sorry. No nice way of putting that.'

Nasreen sighed. 'Right, well, you're going to have to do it before the drill hits the city, in er . . .'

'Eleven minutes forty seconds,' Rose announced.

The Doctor flexed his fingers over the console. 'Yes. Squeaky bum time.'

'Yes, but the explosion is going to cave in all the surrounding tunnels, so we have to be out and on the surface by then,' Nasreen realised.

'But we can't get past Restac's troops,' Rose said.

'I can help with that,' Eldane said, leaving Tony on the examination couch. 'Toxic Fumigation. An emergency failsafe meant to protect my species from infection. A warning signal to occupy cryo-chambers. After that, citywide fumigation by toxic gas. Then the city shuts down.'

'You could end up killing your own people,' Rose told him.

'Only those foolish enough to follow Restac,' he replied.

'Eldane, are you sure about this?' the Doctor asked.

'My priority is my race's survival. The Earth isn't ready for us to return yet.'

'No,' the Doctor agreed.

'Ten minutes, Doctor,' Rose told him.

'But maybe it should be.' The Doctor was thinking of a solution. A long term solution that involved the First and Great Bountiful Empire. An empire where there would be enough space on the planet and all the colonised worlds beyond.

'So, here's a deal. Everybody listening? Eldane, you activate shutdown. I'll amend the system, set your alarm for a thousand years time. A thousand years to sort the planet out. To be ready. Pass it on. As legend, or prophesy, or religion, but somehow make it known. This planet is to be shared.'

'Yeah. I get you,' Elliot said. The Doctor clicked his fingers and pointed at him, pointed at the hope for the future.

Rose looked at the stopwatch. 'Nine minutes, seven seconds.'

The Doctor went to the controls. 'Yes. Fluid controls, my favourite. Energy pulse. Timed, primed and set. Before we go, energy barricade.' He took out his sonic screwdriver. 'Need to cancel it out quickly.' He sonicked the panel.

'Fumigation pre-launching,' Eldane said.

'There's not much time for us to get from here to the surface, Doctor,' Rose said in concern.

'Ah ha, super-squeaky bum time,' he said with glee. Here he was again. A Time Lord with no time left. 'Get ready to run for your lives. Now . . .'

Eldane interrupted him, pointing out a problem. 'But the decontamination program on your friend hasn't started yet.'

'Well, go. All of you, go,' Tony told them.

'No, we're not leaving you here,' Ambrose informed him.

'Granddad,' Elliot called out as he ran forward and hugged him.

Rose updated the countdown. 'Eight minutes ten seconds.'

Tony held Elliot's shoulders. 'Now you look after your mum. You mustn't blame her. She only did what she thought was right.'

'I'm not going to see you again, am I?'

'I'll be here, always,' he said, pointing to his grandson's chest. 'I love you, boy.' He enveloped him in a loving hug. He looked over at his daughter. 'You be sure he gets home safe.'

'This is my fault,' Ambrose cried.

'No, I can't go back up there. I'd be a freak show. The technology down here's my only hope.'

Ambrose hugged him. 'I love you, Dad.'

Tony returned the hug and then gently pushed her away. 'Go. Go.'

Mo held her shoulders and guided her towards the door. 'Come on.'

Tony returned to the couch. 'Go on.'

Eldane put his hand on a panel and the lights dimmed. ['Toxic fumigation initiated. Return to cryo-chambers,] the computer announced.

Outside the laboratory door, Restac heard the announcement. 'No.'

['Toxic fumigation initiated.']

'No!'

['Return to cryo-chambers.']

The soldiers started to make their way back to their cryo-chambers. 'This is not the order,' Restac called after them.

Rose was watching the screen. 'They're going. We're clear.'

'Okay, everyone follow Nasreen,' the Doctor instructed. 'Look for a blue box. Get ready to run.' He sonicked the door open.

['Return to cryo-chambers.']

He went back to speak to Eldane. 'I'm sorry.'

'I thought for a moment, our race and the humans . . .'

'Yeah . . . me too.'

'Doctor, We've got less than six minutes,' Rose reminded him.

'Go. Go! I'm right behind you.' He rubbed Eldane's shoulder in a show of support, and then looked at Nasreen. 'Let's go.'

'I'm not coming either.' she told him.

'What?'

'We're going to hibernate with them, me and Tony.'

'Doctor, you must go,' Eldane urged.

'I can be decontaminated when we're woken. All the time in the world,' Tony said with a smile.

'But, Nasreen , you . . .'

'No, this is perfect. I don't want to go. I've got what I was digging for. I can't leave when I've only just found it.'

At a turn in the tunnel, Rose noticed that her husband wasn't right behind her like he had said. 'Oh, for God's sake.' She ran back down the tunnel and into the laboratory. 'Doctor!'

'Thank you, Doctor,' Nasreen said.

'The pleasure was all mine,' he replied as he hugged her and looked at his watch over her shoulder.

'Come and look for us,' she said as they went through the door. He raised a hand in a farewell gesture.

['Immediate evacuation. Toxic fumigation is about to commence. Immediate evacuation.']

They caught up with the others on the walkway in the garden. 'Come on,' the Doctor called as he ran past them.

['Toxic fumigation is about to commence.']

They eventually reached the TARDIS. 'No questions, just get in. And yes, I know, it's big,' the Doctor told them as he put the key in the lock. 'Ambrose, sickbay up the stairs, left, then left again, Get yourself fixed up.'

Rose brought up the rear. 'Come on. Five minutes and counting,' he told her and then stopped. There was a light behind him.

He turned to see the "W" shaped crack, grinning at him. 'Not here. Not now. It's getting wider.'

'The crack in Amy's bedroom wall,' Rose realised.

'And the Byzantium,' he added. 'All through the universe, rips in the continuum. Some sort of space-time cataclysm. An explosion, maybe. Big enough to put cracks in the universe. But what?'

Rose checked the stopwatch. 'One minute fifty. We have to go.'

The Doctor wasn't listening. He was absorbed by fascination. 'The Angels laughed when I didn't know. Prisoner Zero knew. Everybody knows except me.'

'Love, just leave it.'

He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a red handkerchief and moved towards the crack. 'But where there's an explosion, there's shrapnel.'

'Doctor, you can't put your hand in there.'

'Why not?' he asked and reached into the crack. He found out why not. It hurt! 'Argh. I've got something.'

'What is it?'

He pulled his arm back out, holding something that was wrapped in the handkerchief. 'I don't know.'

'Doctor?' Rose warned him as Restac crawled from around the corner. 'She was there when the gas started. She must have been poisoned.'

'You!' Restac gasped.

'Okay, get in the TARDIS,' he told Rose.

'You did this,' Restac accused him as she raised her weapon.

'NO!' Rose shouted. 'He prevented the senseless slaughter of millions of innocent people.' While she was talking, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

'This was all your doin',' she continued. 'And why? Was it because you thought a soldier with no one to fight isn't a soldier?'

The Doctor sonicked her weapon and it exploded. He crouched down to Restac. 'The greatest warrior is the one that knows when not to fight. I think you learned that lesson too late.'

Restac's eyes flickered and then closed for the last time.

They went into the TARDIS, and the Doctor started the Time Rotor, while Rose went through to the nursery to check on Andrea. She gently lifted her out of her cot, cradling her in her arms as she went back to the console room.

'I have seen some things today, but this is beyond mad,' Mo said as he came down the stairs into the console room, followed by Ambrose and Elliot.

'Doctor. Five seconds till it all goes up,' Rose told him.

They all hurried outside just in time to see the drilling derrick explode. 'All Nasreen's work, just erased,' Rose said sadly.

'Good thing she's not here to see it,' Mo said. 'She's going to give Tony hell when they wake up.'

'You could've let those things shoot me,' Ambrose said to the Doctor in the porch of the church. 'You saved me.'

'An eye for an eye. It's never the way. Now you show your son how wrong you were, how there's another way. You make him the best of humanity, in the way you couldn't be.'

Ambrose nodded and went inside the church as Rose approached from saying goodbye to Mo and Elliot. 'Are we ready then? I need a holiday, and I'm dressed for Rio.'

He put the key in the lock. 'You go in. Just fix this lock. Keeps jamming.'

'You boys and your locksmithery,' Rose said with a cheeky grin.

When she had gone inside the TARDIS, the Doctor unwrapped the piece of shrapnel and inspected it. It was a charred piece of wood painted blue, with a fragment of a white metal plate attached. There was black writing on the plate.

 **POLICE TE**

 **FR**


	8. Vincent, the Doctor, and Rose

**Chapter 13**

 **Vincent, the Doctor, and Rose**

The Doctor scanned the basketball sized droid with his sonic screwdriver and looked at the results. 'Hmmm.'

'What are they? Where did they come from?' Rose asked him.

'Modified maintenance droids,' he told her. 'Brilliant work. This first one has a number of flexible arms inside. It could probably handle any task you threw at it. This second one has a food replicator inside it.'

'So, who modified them?'

'Well if it wasn't me, and it wasn't, then it must have been the TARDIS.'

'Wha'? The TARDIS can do stuff like that?' Rose asked. She knew the old girl was clever and could repair herself, but this was a whole knew level of clever.

'Don't sound so surprised. The old girl loves Andrea. She would never leave her wanting for anything.'

'Ah, that's SO sweet,' Rose said. She stroked the support strut of the workshop. 'Thanks girl.'

They could feel a contented "you're welcome" in their heads, and they saw Andrea go past the door in her baby walker.

The Doctor snorted a laugh. 'There goes baby Davros again.'

Andrea came past again and stopped in the doorway, smiling at them. Rose couldn't help laughing. 'Oh that shouldn't be funny . . . but it is.'

'Yeah . . . Now, are we ready to hit the beach in Brazil?'

Rose looked down at her Union Jack T-shirt and leather skirt. 'Yep. I'm still dressed for Brazil.'

They went through to the console room, and together they set the controls to land the TARDIS in Rio de Janeiro. Surprisingly, when they stepped outside, Rose could see Corcovado mountain with the giant statue of Christ The Redeemer on top. She liked to think that it was her input to the console that had got them to their destination.

They spent a few weeks visiting the beaches of Rio, Barra da Tijuca, Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. It turned out that not only had they arrived at the right location, but they had also arrived at the right time. It was carnival time, and they were treated to a spectacular parade. It felt good to have a break after the recent trauma of the Weeping Angels and the near genocide at the hands of the Silurians.

On a rare, rainy day, the Doctor took them to a bookshop in the Leblon neighbourhood. But instead of going into the bookshop, he took them upstairs to a little art gallery that was apparently hidden away.

Rose was checking the tourist website on her super duper smart phone. 'I thought there was that big art museum thing.'

'Museu de Arte Moderna. Yeah, you could go there, but that's where the art lovers go.'

'And what's wrong with that?'

'Nothing. But here, at Arte em Dobro, this is where the artists come.'

Rose could see what he meant. The works were new, vibrant and exciting. She had never bothered with art museums when she had lived on the Powell Estate. It would have been a sure fire invitation to get a beating from some of the low lifes that hung around by the shops.

'Been bitten by the bug huh? Well when we're done in Rio, why don't we nip over to Paris? There's this beautiful converted railway station, the Musée d'Orsay which houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces on your planet.'

'Yeah. All right. I'd like that.'

A few days later, they were walking through the corridors of the Musée d'Orsay, with Andrea in her pushchair. Rose was wearing a smart, figure hugging short dress, with ankle boots and a smart jacket.

There was an expert in a suit wearing a large, blue bowtie, lecturing a group of visitors. 'So this is one of the last paintings Van Gogh ever painted. Those final months of his life were probably the most astonishing artistic outpouring in history, It was like Shakespeare knocking off Othello, Macbeth and King Lear over the summer hols.'

'We saw him knock a play out overnight once,' Rose said casually, which threw the expert off his stride and made him pause before continuing.

'And especially astonishing because Van Gogh did it with no hope of praise or reward. He is now . . .'

'Thanks for bringin' me,' Rose said as the expert continued.

'You're welcome,' he said. 'And not a Powell Estate hoodie in sight.'

'Hey, I used to wear a hoodie on the estate.'

'Each of these pictures now is worth tens of millions of pounds, yet in his lifetime he was a commercial disaster. Sold only one painting, and that to the sister of a friend. We have here possibly the greatest artist of all time, but when he died you could have sold his entire body of work and got about enough money to buy a sofa . . . and a couple of chairs. If you follow me now . . .'

'Who is it?' a young voice said behind them.

'It's the Doctor,' a different young voice replied.

The Doctor and Rose turned to see two schoolboys looking at the portrait of Doctor Gachet.

'He was the Doctor who took care of Van Gogh when he started to go mad,' the second boy lectured the first.

'I knew that.'

'Look. There it is. The actual one,' Rose said excitedly as she held the picture in her Van Gogh exhibition guide book next to the painting of the Church at Auvers.

'Yes. You can almost feel his hand painting it right in front of you, carving the colours into shapes,' the Doctor said, and then looked a bit closer. 'Wait a minute.'

'What?'

'Well, just look at that.'

'What?'

'Something very not good indeed.'

'What thing very not good?'

'Look there, in the window of the church.'

He pointed at a window in the painting and Rose looked closely. She thought that it looked a bit like a dragon's head. 'Is it a face?'

'Yes. And not a nice face at all. I know evil when I see it and I see it in that window.'

The Doctor went over to the expert, who was at the Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers. 'It has changed hands for something in the region of twenty . . .'

'Excuse me,' the Doctor interrupted. 'If I can just interrupt for one second.' He took out his psychic paper and showed it around. 'Sorry, everyone. Routine inspection, Ministry of Art and Artiness. So, er?'

'Doctor Black,' the expert told him.

'Yes, that's right. Do you know when that picture of the church was painted?'

'Ah, well, ah, well, what an interesting question. Most people imagine . . .'

'I'm going to have to hurry you. When was it?'

'Exactly?'

'As exactly as you can . . . Without a long speech, if possible. I'm in a teensy bit of a hurry.'

'Well, in that case, probably somewhere between the first and third of June.'

'What year?'

'1890. Less than a year before . . . before he killed himself.'

'Thank you, sir. Very helpful indeed. Keep telling them stuff. We need to go,' the Doctor told Black.

'What about the other pictures?' Rose asked as he ushered her to the exit.

'Art can wait. This is life and death. We need to talk to Vincent Van Gogh.'

The TARDIS materialised in a narrow alley, scaring a cat. The door opened and the Doctor stuck his head out. 'Right, so, here's the plan. We find Vincent and he leads us straight to the church and our nasty friend.'

'What could possibly go wrong?' Rose asked sarcastically as she pushed Andrea out in the pushchair.

'Well, quite a lot. I suspect nothing will be easy with Mister Van Gogh. Now, he'll probably be in the local cafe. Sort of orangey light, chairs and tables outside.'

Rose looked in her exhibition guide book, and found "Café Terrace at Night" which she read was painted on the Place du Forum in 1888. 'Like this?'

'That's the one,' he confirmed.

She looked up at the street name, which said they were on the Place du Forum. She looked down the street, and there was the exact same Café Terrace, with chairs and tables outside.

'Or indeed like that,' she said.

The Doctor looked at the painting, at the café and grinned. 'Yeah, exactly like that.'

They walked up to the café, where two waitresses were clearing tables with the manager. 'Good evening,' the Doctor said. 'Does the name Vincent Van Gogh ring a bell?'

'Don't mention that man to me,' the manager said and stalked back inside.

'Excuse me,' the Doctor apologised to the retreating manager. He turned to the waitresses. 'Do you know Vincent Van Gogh?'

'Unfortunately,' one of them said.

'Unfortunately?' Rose queried.

'He's drunk, he's mad and he never pays his bills.'

'Good painter, though, eh?' the Doctor said.

The waitresses laughed like it was the funniest thing they had heard in ages.

A Dutch accent came from inside the café 'Come on! Come on! One painting for one drink. That's not a bad deal.'

The Doctor sat at a table and smiled as the manager, Maurice led his impecunious customer outside. 'It wouldn't be a bad deal if the painting were any good.'

The Doctor pointed and mouthed "Vincent Van Goch" to Rose, who was standing at a table opposite.

'I can't hang that up on my walls. It'd scare the customers half to death.' Rose was open mouthed with silent delight.

'It's bad enough having you in here in person, let alone looming over the customers day and night in a stupid hat. You pay money or you get out.'

'I'll pay, if you like,' the Doctor offered.

The manager looked at him in disbelief. 'What?'

'Well, if you like, I'll pay for the drink.' Vincent turned around to see who was offering to buy him a drink. 'Or I'll pay for the painting and you can use the money to pay for the drink.'

'Exactly who are you?' Vincent asked.

'Oh, I'm new in town.'

'Well, in that case, you don't know three things. One, I pay for my own drinks, thank you.' That got a laugh from the staff.

'Two, no one ever buys any of my paintings or they would be laughed out of town. So if you want to stay in town, I suggest you keep your cash to yourself. And three, your wife . . . if she is your wife is cute, but you should keep your big nose out of other people's business.'

['Well, that told you,'] Rose thought to her husband with a smirk.

Vincent turned back to Maurice. 'Come on, just one more drink. I'll pay tomorrow.'

'No.'

'Or, on the other hand, slightly more compassionately, yes?'

'Or, on the other hand, to protect my business from madmen, no.'

'Or . . .'

Rose had heard enough. 'Oh look, just shut up, the pair of ya.' She wheeled the pushchair towards them. 'I would like a bottle of wine, please, which I will then share with whomever I choose.'

'That could be good,' Vincent said.

'That's good by me,' Maurice agreed.

'Good,' Rose said with a smile as she wheeled Andrea to her father.

Maurice gave Vincent his Self-portrait with Straw Hat back and went inside with Rose. The Doctor leaned forward to talk to his daughter.

'Your mummy's very clever,' he told her and tickled her tummy, who rewarded him with a delightful chuckle. Rose returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses.

'That accent of yours. You from Holland like me?' Vincent asked the Doctor.

'Yes,' he replied.

'No,' said Rose.

['The TARDIS makes me sound Dutch,'] the Doctor thought to Rose. 'She means yeah. So, start again. Hello, I'm the Doctor.' He held his hand out across the table.

'I knew it!' Vincent said angrily.

'Sorry?' the Doctor asked in confusion.

'My brother's always sending Doctors, but you won't be able to help.'

'Oh, no, not that kind of Doctor.'

Vincent picked up one of his paintings, and the Doctor's eyes lit up. 'That's incredible, don't you think, Rose?'

'Absolutely. One of my favourites.'

'One of my favourite whats?' Vincent asked suspiciously. 'You've never seen my work before.'

'Ah yes,' Rose said awkwardly. 'One of my favourite paintings that I've ever seen . . . generally.' She quickly shut up and had a sip of wine.

'Then you can't have seen many paintings, then. I know it's terrible. It's the best I can do.' He leaned forward and started to flirt with her. 'Your hair's golden.'

'Yes. And yours is orange.'

'Yes. It was more orange, but now is, of course, less.'

The Doctor rolled his eyes at the man's clumsy chat up line. 'So. Er, Vincent, painted any churches recently? Any churchy plans? Are churches, chapels, religiousy stuff like that, something you'd like to get into? You know, fairly soon?'

'Well, there is one church I'm thinking of painting when the weather is right.'

'That is very good news.'

An elderly woman ran down the Place du Forum, wailing. 'She's been murdered! Help me!'

'That, on the other hand, isn't quite such good news,' the Doctor said as he jumped out of his seat. 'Come on, Rose, Vincent!'

Rose grabbed the pushchair and hurried after her husband. Vincent finished his drink in one quick gulp and ran after them.

'She's been ripped to shreds!' they heard a man call from a narrow side street, and added in the direction of the commotion.

'Please, let me look. I'm a Doctor,' the Doctor told the crowd.

'Who is it?' a woman asked.

'Oh no, no, no,' the Doctor said sadly as he looked at the body of a young woman lying on the cobblestoned street.

'Is she dead?' a man asked.

A distraught woman pushed people to the side. 'Away, all of you vultures. This is my daughter. Giselle. What monster could have done this? Get away from her!'

'Okay, okay,' the Doctor said, trying to placate her.

'Get that madman out of here!' Giselle's mother yelled at Vincent.

The crowd started throwing stones at Vincent, and the Doctor and Rose got pelted, too. She crouched over the pushchair to protect Andrea from the projectiles.

'OI! There's a baby here,' she called to the crowd.

'You bring this on us. Your madness! You!' Giselle's mother accused Vincent.

'He's to blame!' another woman agreed.

The trio retreated quickly out of the narrow street, and found an alley to escape down.

'Are you all right?' the Doctor asked Vincent.

'Yes, I'm used to it.'

'Has anything like this murder happened here before?'

'Only a week ago. It's a terrible time.'

'As I thought. As I thought. Come on, we'd better get you home.'

'Where are you staying tonight?' Vincent asked.

'Oh, that's very kind of you,' the Doctor said cheekily, slapping his shoulder. Rose laughed nervously and hurried off after the Doctor.

Vincent led them to the courtyard of a small house. The Doctor looked up at the night sky. 'Dark night. Very starry.'

'It's not much. I live on my own. But you should be okay for one night,' he said as he crossed the courtyard. 'One-night,' he emphasised.

'We're going to stay with him?' Rose asked excitedly.

'Until he paints that church.'

'Watch out. That one's wet,' Vincent warned them as he passed a painting that was hanging by the door.

'What?' Rose asked as she looked at the painting. She recognised it from the Musée d'Orsay. It was called The Bedroom in Arles she recalled. She took Andrea out of the pushchair, kissed her cheek, and carried her inside.

'Sorry about all the clutter,' Vincent apologised as he moved a painting out of the way.

'Some clutter,' the Doctor said in admiration.

'I've come to accept the only person who's going to love my paintings is me.'

'Wow,' Rose said. 'I mean, really. Wow.'

'Yeah, I know it's a mess. I'll have a proper clear out. I must, I really must.'

The Doctor and Rose browsed the pictures around the room as if they were back in the Musée d'Orsay. Rose was pointing at the paintings, drawing Andrea's attention to them.

'Coffee, anyone?' Vincent asked.

'Not for me actually,' the Doctor said, and then noticed him putting the coffee pot on one of his paintings, leaving a ring on it. 'You know, you should be careful with these. They're precious.'

'Precious to me. Not precious to anyone else,' Vincent said sadly.

'They're precious to me,' Rose told him, poking her around the door from another room of art treasures.

'Well, you're very kind. And kindness is most welcome.'

The Doctor changed the subject. 'Right, so, this church, then. Near here, is it?'

'What is it with you and the church?' Vincent asked suspiciously as he took some logs from the indoor pile by the door.

'Oh, just casually interested in it, you know.'

'Far from casual. It seems to me you never talk about anything else.' He looked to Rose. 'He's a strange one.'

['Ooh, he's got your number,'] Rose thought with a giggle.

'Okay, so, let's talk about you, then. What are you interested in?'

'Well, look around. Art. It seems to me there's so much more to the world than the average eye is allowed to see. I believe, if you look hard, there are more wonders in this universe than you could ever have dreamed of.'

'You don't have to tell me.'

The Doctor sat by the fire while Vincent tried to explain. 'It's colour. Colour that holds the key. I can hear the colours. Listen to them.'

['Ah, that explains a lot,'] the Doctor thought to Rose, who was looking at the paintings hanging by the door.

['What's that then?']

['He's got a form of synesthesia. He can hear the sound of colours, just like the composers Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov could see the colours of sound.']

Vincent grabbed the Doctor's lapels to get his attention. 'Every time I step outside, I feel nature is shouting at me. Come on. Come and get me. Come on. Come on! Capture my mystery!'

'Maybe you've had enough coffee now,' the Doctor said kindly. 'How about some nice calming tea? Let's get you a cup of chamomile or something, shall we?' He stood up and looked to the door. 'Rose . . . Where's Rose?'

As if on cue, he heard Andrea cry out and Rose scream outside. 'No, no, no!'

They ran out into the courtyard, and found Rose sitting on the ground, cradling and comforting their distressed daughter.

'Rose? Rose? What happened?'

'I don't know. I didn't see it. I was havin' a look at the paintings out here when somethin' startled Andrea. When I turned to see what it was, it hit me from behind.'

'Your daughter probably saved your life,' Vincent told her.

The Doctor helped her to her feet. 'It's okay. He's gone now and we're here.'

'No! No!' Vincent cried out.

'Take it easy. Take it easy!' the Doctor said.

Vincent was backing away from something only he could see.

'What's happenin'? What's he doin'?' Rose asked.

'Haven't the foggiest.'

Vincent picked up a wooden pitchfork and pointed it at the Doctor, who cautiously backed away. 'Ah. Right. About that tea . . .'

'Run,' Vincent told him. 'Run!'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a bad idea. Rose, get back. He's having some kind of fit. I'll try to calm him down.'

Vincent was stabbing at the air. 'Easy, Vincent, easy. Look. Look, look, look. It's me, it's me, it's me. It's the Doctor, look. No-one else is here.'

Rose noticed that her crying daughter appeared to be looking at the same thing. 'Doctor, look! It's like she can see somethin' as well.'

'So, Vincent . . .' the Doctor started to say.

But Vincent interrupted him with a warning cry. 'Look out!'

A barrel was knocked over, and then the Doctor went flying as though something had knocked him off his feet.

'I can't see anything,' Rose told him over the wails of her daughter. 'What is it?'

'That, is a good question,' the Doctor said to Rose, and then addressed Vincent. 'Let me help you.' He grabbed a wooden pole.

'You can see him, too?' Vincent asked in surprise. He wasn't mad. It was real!

'Yes . . . Well, sort of . . . ish. Well . . . no. Not really,' he replied and was sent flying again. They may not have been able to see the creature, but they could hear it growl.

'You couldn't see him?' Vincent asked the supine Doctor, wondering if he was mad after all.

'No. No,' the Doctor admitted from the floor. Vincent went charging off again. 'Oi!'

The Doctor swung his pole in wild arcs, while Vincent plunged his pitchfork into the invisible enemy, apparently wounding it and causing it to leave. The Doctor continued to swing his pole in the air.

'He's gone,' Vincent told him.

'Oh, right. Yes. Of course he has . . . I knew that.' He dropped the pole, straightened his tie and nonchalantly followed them back into the house.

* * *

'And you'll be sure to tell me if you see any . . . you know, monsters,' the Doctor said to Vincent as they stood outside the Church at Auvers.

'Yes. While I may be mad, I'm not stupid.'

'No. Quite. And, to be honest, I'm not sure about mad either. It seems to me depression is a very complex . . .'

'Shush. I'm working,' Vincent told him as he continued his painting of the church.

The Doctor held up his hands. 'Well, yes. Of course you are. Paint. Do painting! I remember watching Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. Wow! What a whinger. I kept saying to him, look, if you're scared of heights, you shouldn't have taken the job then.'

'Shush,' Rose said.

'And Picasso. What a miserable old goat. I kept telling him, concentrate, Pablo. It's one eye, either side of the face.'

Rose rolled her eyes. 'Quiet!'

She usually loved his runaway gob, but there was a time and a place. She knew she was slightly tetchy because she'd left Andrea in the TARDIS again, and it still felt wrong. And she had felt silly as she'd told Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum that if anything happened to Andrea, she would slam dunk them into the next universe.

The two droids had leaned back to look up at her, which she thought was silly, because they didn't have any eyes, or even any faces. They had then turned to "look" at each other, "looked" back at her, and then had rolled over to the playpen to give Andrea anything her heart desired.

An owl hooted which brought Rose out of her telepathic link with her daughter. She noticed that Vincent had almost finished the painting.

'Is this how time normally passes? Really slowly?' the Doctor asked them. 'In the right order. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an unpunctual alien attack.'

Rose could sense his uneasiness. 'Are you okay? You seem a bit . . . if I didn't know you better, I'd say nervous.'

'Yes, there's something not right and I can't quite put my finger on it.'

'There. He's at the window,' Vincent announced suddenly.

'Where?' the Doctor asked.

'There, on the right.'

It was just as they had seen it in the painting. 'As I thought. Come on. I'm going in.'

'Well I'm coming too,' Vincent said.

'No! You're Vincent Van Gogh. No.'

'But you're not armed.'

'I am.'

'What with?'

'Overconfidence, this,' he said, indicating the alien detector. 'And a small screwdriver. I'm definitely sorted. Just have to find the right crosactic setting and stun him with it. Sonic never fails. Anyway, Rose, only one thought, one simple instruction. Don't follow me under any circumstances.'

'I won't,' she said like a dutiful wife, and he set off for the church.

'Will you follow him?' Vincent asked.

'Of course.'

Vincent looked at her admiringly. 'I love you.'

The Doctor reached the church porch and looked at the decoration above the door. It depicted St Michael slaying the dragon. The Doctor put on the alien detecting gizmo and went inside. He could hear the Krafayis moving about, but couldn't see it on the large mirror of the detector. He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the area.

'Damn, he's moved,' he said as he glimpsed the Krafayis as it swiped at him and smashed the mirror on the detector. He ran for the door and pulled it open to find Rose standing there. 'Argh! I thought I told you . . . Never mind. We'll talk about it later. Quick, in here.'

He dragged her into a confessional booth. 'Absolutely quiet. Can you breath a little quieter, please?'

'No,' Rose said. 'He's gone past.'

'Shush.'

The beast smashed Rose's side of the confessional and she screamed

'I think he heard us,' the Doctor said and it attacked his side. 'That is impressive hearing he's got. What's less impressive are our chances of survival.'

'Hey! Are you looking for me, sonny? Come on, over here. Because I'm right here waiting for you,' they heard Vincent say outside the confessional booth.

They stepped out of the booth and saw Vincent fending off the Krafayis with a chair. 'Come on. Quickly. Get behind me.'

The Doctor tried his sonic screwdriver on the invisible beast. 'Doing anything?'

Vincent shook his head. 'Uh uh.'

They ran outside the Church. 'Where is he?' the Doctor asked.

'Where do you think he is, you idiot?' Vincent said sharply. 'Use your head.'

The Doctor tried the sonic again. 'Anything?'

'Nothing. In fact, he seemed to rather enjoy it.'

'Ooh.'

'Duck!' Vincent called to the Doctor. 'Left.'

The Doctor ducked to the left and got thrown against a wall.

'Right, sorry,' Vincent apologised. 'Your right, my left.'

The Doctor struggled to his feet. 'This is no good at all. Run like crazy and regroup.'

'Oh, come on, in here,' Rose said and opened the door to the crypt. They tried to close the door, but something was stopping it. Vincent could see the Krafayis foot in the door and stamped on it. The door closed.

The Doctor pinched his thumb and finger together. 'Right. Okay. Here's the plan. Rose, Vincent.'

'What is the plan?' Rose asked.

'I don't know, actually. My only definite plan is that in future I'm definitely just using this screwdriver for screwing in screws.'

'Give me a second. I'll be back,' Vincent said and hurried off.

'I suppose we could try talking to him,' the Doctor told Rose.

'Talking to him?'

'Well, yes. Might be interesting to know his side of the story. Yes, though maybe he's not really in the mood for conversation right at this precise moment.'

The beast hammered on the door. 'Well, no harm trying. Listen. Listen! I know you can understand me, even though I know you won't understand why you can understand me. I also know that no one's talked to you for a pretty long stretch, but please, listen. I also don't belong on this planet. I also am alone. If you trust me, I'm sure we can come to some kind of, you know, understanding. And then, and then, who knows?'

A window broke, and the invisible beast entered the church. 'Over here, mate!' Vincent called to it.

They hid behind a stone monument. Vincent had fetched his easel and was brandishing it with its three pointed feet forwards.

'What's it up to now?' the Doctor asked.

'It's moving round the room. Feeling its way around.'

That struck a chord with the Doctor. 'What?'

'It's like it's trapped. It's moving round the edges of the room.'

'I can't see a thing,' Rose said.

'I really am stupid,' the Doctor announced.

'Oh, get a grip!' Rose told him. 'This is not a moment to re-evaluate your self-esteem.'

'No, I am really stupid, and I'm growing old. Why does it attack but never eat its victims? And why was it abandoned by its pack and left here to die? And why is it feeling its way helplessly around the walls of the room? It can't see. It's blind. Yes, and that explains why it has such perfect hearing!'

'Which unfortunately also explains why it is now turning around and heading straight for us,' Vincent said.

'Vincent. Vincent, what's happening?' the Doctor asked.

'It's charging now. Get back. Get back!'

The Krafayis charged Vincent and skewered itself on the easel. It lifted Vincent into the air, before falling to the floor, mortally wounded.

'He wasn't without mercy at all,' Vincent realised. 'He was without sight. I didn't mean that to happen. I only meant to wound it, I never meant to . . .'

'He's trying to say something,' the Doctor said.

'What is it?'

'I'm having trouble making it out, but I think he's saying, I'm afraid. I'm afraid. There, there. Shush, shush. It's okay, it's okay. You'll be fine. Shush.'

'He was frightened, and he lashed out. Like humans who lash out when they're frightened. Like the villagers who scream at me. Like the children who throw stones at me.'

'Sometimes winning . . . winning is no fun at all,' the Doctor said philosophically.

They arrived back at Vincent's home. 'I only wish I had something of real value to give you,' Vincent told the Doctor, presenting him with the painting Self-portrait in a Straw Hat.

'Oh, no, no, no. I could never accept such an extraordinary gift.'

'Very well. You're not the first to decline the offer,' he told him. Vincent turned to Rose. 'Rose, the blessed, the wonderful, the mother.'

'Be good to yerself . . . and be kind to yerself,' she said as he kissed her cheeks.

'I'll try my best.'

'And maybe give the beard a little trim before you next kiss someone.' She rubbed her cheek and smiled.

'I will, I will. And if you tire of this Doctor of yours, return, and we will have children by the dozen.'

Rose squeaked with shock. 'Eek.'

Vincent shook the Doctor's hand. 'Doctor, my friend. We have fought monsters together and we have won. On my own, I fear I may not do as well.' They hugged and slapped each other's backs.

'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' the Doctor asked Rose as they walked through the courtyard.

'I was thinkin' I may need some food or somethin' before we leave.'

'Well, no, you're not thinking exactly what I'm thinking then.' He turned and shouted up to an open window. 'VINCENT!'

Van Gogh appeared shirtless in the window. 'I've got something I'd like to show you. Maybe just tidy yourself up a bit first.'

In the alleyway, the TARDIS had been covered in advertising posters. 'Now, you know we've had quite a few chats about the possibility there might be more to life than normal people imagine?'

'Yes.'

'Well, brace yourself, Vinny.'

Rose went through the door with Andrea so that she could see his reaction. She loved to watch that, and Vincent didn't disappoint. His eyes took in the large expanse of the console room, and he hurried back outside to look around the outside. 'How come I'm the crazy one, and you two have stayed sane?' he asked as he stepped back inside. The sound of time and space warping out of shape filled the alley, as the light on top of the blue box started to flash, before it faded away.

'Where are we?' Vincent asked as he looked at the remnants of the burning posters on the TARDIS.

'Paris, 2010 AD. And this is the mighty Museé D'Orsay, home to many of the greatest paintings in history,' the Doctor told him.

Vincent looked up at the magnificent architecture. 'Oh, that's wonderful.'

Two lads walked past listening to a radio, and Vincent watched them with fascination. 'Ignore that,' the Doctor said. 'I've got something more important to show you.'

They took him inside, up the stairs, and into the Van Gogh gallery. The Doctor found Black conducting another tour. 'Doctor Black, we met a few days ago. I asked you about the church at Auvers.'

'Oh, yes. Glad to be of help.'

'I just wondered, between you and me, in a hundred words, where do you think Van Gogh rates in the history of art?'

'Well, big question, but to me, Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all,' Black told him. 'Certainly, the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved. His command of colour, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty.'

Rose noticed that Vincent's eyes were filling with tears.

'Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world. No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.'

Vincent was sobbing as the Doctor looked at him. 'Vincent. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is it too much?' He tried to comfort him with a hug.

'No. They are tears of joy.' He turned to Black. 'Thank you, sir. Thank you.'

Vincent kissed Doctor Black on both cheeks and hugged him. Black was stunned by this behaviour. 'You're welcome. You're welcome.'

'Sorry about the beard,' Vincent apologised as he walked away.

Black took a few steps then stopped as he thought about the man he had just met. He turned back to look at him and shook his head, mouthing "No". It couldn't be.

'This changes everything,' Vincent announced enthusiastically as he stepped out of the TARDIS into an olive grove. 'I'll step out tomorrow with my easel on my back a different man. I still can't believe that one of the haystacks was in the museum. How embarrassing.'

'It's been a great adventure and a great honour,' the Doctor told him, shaking his hand and hugging him.

'You've turned out to be the first Doctor ever actually to make a difference to my life.'

'I'm delighted. I won't ever forget you.'

Vincent turned to Rose. 'And you are sure you won't divorce this man and marry me instead?'

'Sorry Vincent. I promised him forever, and that's one promise I won't break.' She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. 'Come on. Let's go back to the gallery right now,' she said to her husband.

Rose carried Andrea in her arms as she hurried back into the museum. 'Time can be re-written. I know it can. Come on! Oh, the long life of Vincent Van Gogh. There'll be hundreds of new paintings.'

'I'm not sure there will,' the Doctor said as he followed her up the stairs.

'Come on!' she called to him. She was desperate to see how it had turned out.

Doctor Black was lecturing another group of visitors. 'We have here the last work of Vincent Van Gogh, who committed suicide at only thirty seven. He is now acknowledged to be one of the foremost artists of all time. If you follow me now.'

'So you were right,' Rose said sadly. 'No new paintings. It's Charles Dickens all over again . . . and my Dad. We didn't make a difference at all.'

He gently hugged her. 'I wouldn't say that. The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. Hey. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things. And, if you look carefully, maybe we did indeed make a couple of little changes.'

Rose looked closely at the painting of the Church at Auvers. 'No Krafayis.'

'No Krafayis,' he agreed.

Rose slowly walked over to the Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers painting. What was that on the vase?

"For Rose, Vincent"


	9. The Lodger

**Chapter 14**

 **The Lodger**

Rose's eyes flickered open as she roused out of her sleep, and saw her husband smiling at her, his head propped up with his hand and forearm.

'Mornin',' she said as she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. 'Morning gorgeous,' he replied.

'Mmmm, this is a lovely way to wake up,' she said, and started to kiss his neck and chest. She felt his hands fondling her bum and running up and down her spine.

They were both getting aroused when Rose suddenly stopped kissing, and the Doctor suddenly stopped fondling, as they both got that feeling that you get when you think you are being watched. They saw the puzzled looks on each others faces, and slowly turned to look towards the door.

Rose let out a startled 'eek', and quickly rolled off the Doctor and pulled the duvet up to cover her naked chest. The Doctor grabbed his half of the duvet and pulled it up to cover his erection. There, in the middle of the room, was their daughter, sitting in her walker with a big smile on her face.

'What the hell? How did you get in here?' Rose asked her.

'A more pertinent question would be, how did she get out of her cot, into her walker, and out of the nursery,' the Doctor said.

'Yeah, that an' all,' Rose agreed.

As if in answer to their questions, a guilty looking , basketball sized nanny-bot peeped around the open doorway. That was a remarkable feat in itself, as the droid had no eyes to peep with, and no face to have a guilty expression on. And yet it managed it with an amazing degree of accuracy.

'OI! Tweedle Dee,' Rose called. 'In here, now!' The little droid rolled into the room, somehow giving the impression that it was reluctant to do so.

It's counterpart rolled into view in the hallway and stopped. It made an 'uh-oh' sound and turned to roll off when Rose spotted it.

'Tweedle Dum, you too. Front and centre.' It gave a mournful little whistle and slowly joined its accomplice in front of their mistress. She looked at the Doctor. 'Can they understand me?'

He looked at the droids, waiting there like naughty children in front of the headmistress. 'Er, I don't know. I should imagine they have language processors to receive verbal command inputs.'

'I'll take that as a yes,' she told him. 'Right. First of all, I'd like to thank you for looking after Andrea so well.'

The droids turned to "look" at each other, "looked" back at Rose, and made a surprised "thank you" sound.

'However,' Rose continued, and the droids rolled back slightly, expecting the worst. 'When she wakes up in the mornings, me or her dad . . . that's him,' she clarified, pointing to the Doctor lying in front of her.

While she had been talking to the droids, Andrea had been chewing on a soft plastic teething ring. She tapped it on the plastic tray in front of her, which was built into the walker, and then threw it across the room.

'Will . . .' Rose continued, but Tweedle Dee held up one of his three fingers in a "just a moment" gesture. Rose watched in open mouthed amazement as it rolled over to the teething ring, picked it up, and returned it to its owner, placing it on the plastic tray. Andrea squealed with delight as she put the ring in her mouth and started chewing on it.

The Doctor started to chuckle. 'I can't believe our daughter has got them trained so quickly.'

Tweedle Dee returned to its position in front of Rose, waiting for her to continue the telling off. Rose smiled at the droids and softened her voice. 'Just . . . just leave us something to do eh? We'll get her out of her cot and take care of her in the mornin's. Is that okay?' Somehow, the droids gave the impression of nodding and made an "okay" sound.

'Right then. Off you go then, we'll take it from here thank you.'

The two little droids turned around and rolled out of the room. Rose leaned forward and kissed the Doctor on the lips, groaning with frustration. 'Sorry Love. It'll have to wait,' she said, referring to his erection. She looked at her daughter. 'Duty calls.'

'Ah well, never mind. Let's get dressed, have breakfast, and I'll take you to the fifth moon of Cindie Colesta,' he said.

'Who's Cindy Callista?' she asked him. 'And why does she own a load of moons?'

'No. Cindie Co-les-ta, a gas giant with a dozen moons. The fifth one is habitable and has lots of markets and bazaars . . . lots of shopping,' he said by way of an enticement.

'Ooh, sounds good to me.'

After breakfast, they went through to the console room, and Rose fastened Andrea into the baby jump seat, ready for landing, whilst the Doctor landed the TARDIS, and checked the view screen.

'Did we make it?' Rose asked him.

'Hmm, that's odd. It doesn't look like the fifth moon of Cindie Colesta. I'd better go and have a look.' He went to the door and looked outside. 'No, Rose, it's definitely not the fifth moon of Cindie Colesta. I think I can see a Ryman's.'

An explosion inside the TARDIS threw him out and to the ground, as the TARDIS dematerialised.

'Rose!' he called out. ['Rose!'] he thought to her.

['Doctor? It's saying we're on Earth. Essex, Colchester,'] she told him, hanging onto the view screen as the TARDIS shook and the console room banged and sparked.

The shaking stopped, and the Time Rotor started pumping again. ['Doctor? It's taking off again.'] The TARDIS was struggling to stay solid. 'Come on, come on Why won't you land?' she asked the console as she tried to materialise the TARDIS.

The Doctor climbed to his feet, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He looked around the ordinary suburban street, and zeroed in on something far from ordinary.

'Ah, that's a bit weird,' he said as he looked at an end of terrace house opposite. There was something in that house that was stopping the TARDIS from materialising. ['Rose? Just keep the TARDIS stable for now. Something is wrong here and I need to find out what.']

['What is it?']

['Not sure, but there's something in a house that is stopping the TARDIS from landing. I need to get inside that house. Any ideas?']

['What's wrong with the usual sonicking and entering?']

['I think the sonic will attract too much attention. I think a stealthy approach is called for. You know . . . subtle.']

He felt Rose snort a laugh. ['Subtle? You?']

['I can do subtle,'] he told her indignantly. ['I can be Doctor Subtle.']

Rose thought about that after she had finished laughing. Her husband wouldn't have a clue about moving into a house. She thought about the time she had lived in the grotty bedsit with Jimmy Stone.

['Go and have a look at the front door. Does it have more than one door bell, or a number of post boxes?'] There was a chance the house was a bedsit or converted flats.

['Brilliant.'] he thought to her. He crossed the green, went over the road, and looked at the red front door. ['There's an intercom with two labels "79A" and "79B".']

['Well, it's a longshot, but the local newsagents window might have an advert for a lodger.']

* * *

The next morning, the Doctor went back to the house after spending the night travelling around on the night bus and chatting to the passengers to pass the time. The longshot had paid off. There was a note in the newsagents window asking for a lodger along with a mobile number to call. It was the note above that had caught his attention though. The one from his wife.

He pressed the doorbell and heard someone come to the door.

The door opened and the young man said, 'I love you.'

'Well, that's good,' the Doctor said cheerfully. 'Because I'm your new lodger. Y'know, this is going to be easier than I thought.' He took a set of fluffy pink keys from Craig.

'But I only put the advert up today. I didn't put my address,' Craig told him, wondering how he knew where to find him, having only put his mobile number.

'Well, aren't you lucky I came along? More lucky than you know. Less of a young professional, more of an ancient amateur, but frankly I'm a god send.'

'Hang on a minute, mate. I don't know if I want you staying. And give me back those keys. You can't have those.'

'Yes, quite right . . . Have some rent,' the Doctor said, handing Craig a paper take-away bag with lots of twenty pound notes in it. 'That's probably a lot, isn't it? Looks like a lot. Is it a lot? I can never tell. The wife normally takes care of all that.'

The Doctor pushed past Craig and went into the hallway. He noticed the lights upstairs were flickering. 'Don't spend it all on sweets, unless you like sweets. I like sweets.'

'The wife?' Craig asked.

'Yeah. She's out of town at the moment. We do a lot of travelling. I'm the Doctor by the way.'

'Craig Owens . . . The Doctor?'

'Yep. Who lives upstairs?'

'Just some bloke.'

'What's he look like?'

'Normal . . . He's very quiet.' A crash from upstairs refuted that statement. 'Usually. Sorry, who are you again?' Craig asked, but the Doctor had gone through to the flat. 'Hello? Excuse me?' he called after him.

'Ah. I suppose that's dry rot?' the Doctor said looking at a dark patch on the ceiling and part of the wall.

'Or damp . . . Or mildew.'

'Or none of the above,' the Doctor suggested mysteriously.

'I'll get someone to fix it.'

'No, I'll fix it. I'm good at fixing rot. This is the most amazing parlour I've ever seen. You're obviously a man of impeccable taste. I can stay, Craig, can't I? Go on, say I can.'

'You haven't even seen the room.'

'What room?'

'Your room.'

'My room? Oh, yes. My room. My room. Take me to my room.'

Craig led the Doctor to a room with Eighties decor. 'Yeah, this is Mark's old room. He owns the place. Moved out about a month ago. This uncle he'd never even heard of died and left a load of money in the will.'

'That's fortunate,' the Doctor said as innocently as he could. 'This'll do just right. In fact.'

There was another loud crash from above. The Doctor licked his finger and held it up, testing the air. 'No time to lose. I'll take it. Ah you'll want to see my credentials,' he said and took out his psychic paper. 'There. National Insurance number.' He passed the wallet behind his back and held it up again. 'NHS number.' He passed it again. 'References.'

'Hang on. Is that a reference from the Prime Minister?' Craig asked as the Doctor put the wallet away.

'Er, yeah. One of them. Are you hungry? I'm hungry.' The Doctor went through to the kitchen area.

'I haven't got anything in.'

The Doctor looked in the fridge. 'You've got everything I need for an omelette fines herbes, pour deux. So, who's the girl on the fridge?' he asked, referring to a photograph of Craig and a young woman, along with a Vincent van Gogh Self-portrait in Straw Hat postcard.

'My friend. Sophie.'

'Girlfriend?'

'A friend who is a girl. There's nothing going on.'

'Oh, that's completely normal. Works for me.'

'We met at work about a year ago, at the call centre.'

'Oh really, a communications hub? That could be handy.'

'Firm's going down though. The bosses are using a totally rubbish business model. I know what they should do. I got a plan all worked out. But I'm just a phone drone, I can't go running in saying I know best. Why am I telling you this? I don't even know you,' Craig said.

'Well, I've got one of those faces. People never stop blurting out their plans while I'm around.'

'Right. Where's your stuff?'

'Oh, don't worry,' the Doctor said, whipping up the omelette. 'It'll materialise. If all goes to plan.'

* * *

In his rented bedroom, the Doctor had outdone himself with his latest gizmo. Forget the hand held gadget that went ding and lit up in the presence of shape-shifter DNA, this was a serious mega-gizmo. It included a bicycle wheel, an umbrella, a rotary clothes line, a lamp shade and the bicycle's pedals, with a rake, a broom and an oar as outriggers and a traffic cone on top.

['Right. Shield's up. Let's scan,'] he thought to Rose as he set it spinning.

['What are you getting?']

['Upstairs. No traces of high technology. Totally normal? No, no, no, no, no, it can't be. It's too normal.']

['Only for you could too normal be a problem. You said we could be lost forever. Just go upstairs.']

['Without knowing and get myself killed? Then you really are lost. If I could just get a look in there. Hold on. Use the data bank. Get me the plans of this building. I want to know its history, the layout, everything. meanwhile, I shall recruit a spy.']

In the flat, Craig was starting to tidy up when he decided to examine the stain more closely, and stood on the sofa to touch the damp patch.

As he touched the stain, there was a hissing sound and it burned his fingers. 'Ow! Ow.'

The next morning, the Doctor was carrying a tray along the hallway. 'Craig? Craig? I've made some breakfast. Do you want some? Craig?'

He let himself into Craig's room, and saw him lying in the bed, obviously in serious trouble. 'Craig. Craig, Craig, Craig. I told you not to touch it. Look, what's that?'

He lifted Craig's arm and saw a green line up the inside of his forearm. 'It's an unfamiliar and obviously poisonous substance. 'Oh, I know what'd be really clever, I'll stick my hand in it. Come on, Craig, breathe.'

The Doctor clenched his fists together and hit Craig's chest. Craig gasped. 'Come on, Craig, breathe. Thems are healthy footballer's lungs.'

He ran back to the kitchenette and stuffed as many tea bags as possible into a commemorative Royal Wedding teapot. 'Right, reverse the enzyme decay. Excite the tannin molecules.'

He ran back to Craig's room, and poured the super-strong tea through the spout, straight into Craig's mouth. Craig swallowed the tea and then spoke. 'I've got to go to work.'

'On no account. You need rest. One more.' He poured some more tea into Craig's mouth.

'It's the planning meeting. It's important.'

'You're important. You're going to be fine, Craig.'

When the Doctor left him, the bedside clock displayed 7.15. When Craig woke up, it displayed 14.45.

'What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,' Craig said as he pulled himself out of bed. He quickly got dressed, and made his way into work.

Craig made his way to the call centre and rushed into the office.

'Oh, afternoon,' a man in a suit said.

'I'm so sorry, Michael. I don't know what happened. I've got no excuse,' Craig apologised.

'I think that's not what my screen is telling me, Mister Lang,' the Doctor said to someone on his headset.

'What's he doing here?' Craig asked Michael. 'What are you doing here?' he asked the Doctor.

'If that's your attitude, Mister Lang, please take your custom elsewhere,' the Doctor said.

'No, no, no, that's one of my best clients.'

'Hello, Craig. How are you feeling? Had some time to kill. I was curious. Never worked in an office on Earth before. Worked in a lab once for UNIT, but not an office.'

'You're insane.'

'Leave off the Doctor,' Michael told him. 'I love the Doctor. He was brilliant in the planning meeting.'

'You went to the planning meeting?' Craig asked in amazement.

'Yeah. I was your representative. We don't need Mister Lang any more. Rude Mister Lang.'

'Here you go, and I found some custard creams,' Sophie said, handing the Doctor a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits.

'Sophie, my hero.'

Sophie turned to Craig. 'Hi, Craig. I went on the web, applied for a wildlife charity thing. They said I could always start as a volunteer straight away. Should I do it?'

Craig was to distracted to concentrate. 'Yeah, great. Yeah, good. Go for it.'

'You look awful,' the Doctor told him. 'About turn. Bed. Now. Who next? Oh, yes. Hello, Mister Joergensen. Can you hold? I have to eat a biscuit.'

The Doctor watched Craig leave, and he also saw how Sophie looked at him. That bit about the wildlife charity thing could have gone better. He returned his focus to the task in hand when he heard a voice in his headset. 'Ah, Mister Joergensen. How can I help you?'

When the Doctor had finished at the call centre, he returned to the house and let himself in. A cat was coming down the stairs. 'Have you been upstairs?' It replied with a 'meow.'

He sat down on the stairs and stroked the cat. 'Yes? You can do it. Show me what's up there? What's behind that door? Try to show me.'

'Meow.'

'Oh, but that doesn't make sense. Ever see anyone go up there?'

'Meow.'

'Lots of people? Good, good. What kind of people?'

'Meow.'

'People who never came back down. Oh, that's bad. That's very bad.'

Craig snatched open the door of the flat.

'Oh, hello,' the Doctor said.

'I can't take this any more. I want you to go.' He went back into the flat and picked up the bag of money. 'You can have this back and all.'

'What have I done?'

'For a start, talking to a cat.'

'Lots of people talk to cats.'

'And everybody loves you, and you're better at football than me, and my job, and now Sophie's all oh, monkeys, monkeys, and then there's that,' he said, opening the door to the Doctor's room and pointing at the mega-gizmo.

'It's art. A statement on modern society, Ooh, ain't modern society awful.'

'Me and you, it's not going to work out. You've only been here three days. These have been the three weirdest days of my life.'

'Your days will get a lot weirder if I go.'

'It was good weirdness. It's not, its bad weird. I can't do this any more.'

'Craig, I can't leave this place. I'm like you; I can't see the point of anywhere else. Madrid? Ha, what a dump. I have to stay.'

'No, you don't. You have to leave.'

'I can't go.'

Craig grabbed the Doctor's lapels. 'Just get out!'

'Right. Only way. I'm going to show you something, but shush. Really, shush. Oh, I am so going to regret this. Okay, right. First, general background.' The Doctor head butted Craig.

'Argh.' Craig received a very quick view of the Doctor's life so far. 'Oh.'

'Ow,' the Doctor said, holding his forehead.

Craig pointed at him, open mouthed. 'You're a . . .'

'Yes.'

'From . . .'

The Doctor shushed him.

'You've got a TARDIS!'

'Yes. Shush.' He pointed at his face. 'Tenth. Right. Okay, specific detail.' He head butted him again, and they both went 'Argh.'

Craig got another burst of data. 'You saw my ad in the paper shop window.'

'Yes, with this right above it. Which is odd, because Rose hasn't written it yet.' He held up the note that Rose would write.

"Doctor - this one no 79a Aickman Road Rose xx"

'Time travel. It can happen.'

Craig pointed at the mega-gizmo. 'That's a scanner. You used non-technological technology of Lammasteen!'

The Doctor put his hand over Craig's mouth. 'SHUT UP!'

They both held their foreheads. 'Argh.'

'I am never, never doing that ever, ever again,' the Doctor told him, and then called his wife. ['Rose.']

'That's your wife, Rose.'

'Oh, of course, you can understand us now. Hurrah.' ['Got those plans yet?']

['Still searching for them,'] she told him.

['I've worked it out, with psychic help from a cat.']

['A cat?']

['Yes. I know he's got a time engine in the flat upstairs. He's using innocent people to try and launch it. Whenever he does, they get burnt up.] He pointed at Craig. 'Hence the stain on your ceiling.'

'From the ceiling,' Craig said in realisation.

'Well done, Craig.' ['And you, Wife, with our daughter, nearly get thrown off into the Vortex.']

['Lovely.']

There was a loud crash from upstairs. 'People are dying up there,' Craig realised, and then went into some kind of loop. 'People are dying. People are dying. People are dying.' The loop finished. 'They're being killed.'

'Someone's up there,' the Doctor told him, and they both ran to the stairs.

['Doctor?'] Rose called from a rocking TARDIS.

['Hang on.] 'Craig, come on. Someone's dying up there.'

As they went up the stairs, they saw Sophie's fluffy pink key ring in the door lock. 'Sophie. It's Sophie that's dying up there! It's Sophie!' Craig said.

['Doctor!'] Rose called again, and then was thrown about again. ['Argh!']

'Where's Sophie?' Craig asked at the door to the upstairs flat.

'Wait, wait.' ['Rose?']

['Are you upstairs?']

['Just going in.']

['But you can't be upstairs.']

['Of course I can be upstairs.']

['No, I've got the plans. You cannot be upstairs; it's a one-storey building. There is no upstairs.']

The Doctor sonicked the door, and they went inside. 'What?' Craig asked in confusion. 'What?'

'Oh . . . Oh, of course,' the Doctor said as he looked around a high-tech room with a central control console. 'The time engine isn't in the flat, the time engine is the flat. Someone's attempt to build a TARDIS.'

'No, there's always been an upstairs,' Craig told him.

The door they had just come through flickered between a front door and a bulkhead door. 'Has there? Think about it.'

'Yes . . . No . . . I don't . . .'

'Perception filter. It's more than a disguise. It tricks your memory.'

They heard a scream from the other side of the central console. 'Sophie! Sophie! Oh, my God, Sophie!' Craig called out.

Sophie was being pulled towards the central console by a web of electricity. 'Craig,' she called back.

'It's controlling her,' the Doctor told him. 'It's willing her to touch the activator.'

'That's not going to have her,' Craig said and grabbed her arm to try and stop her. Her hand was pulled onto a dome shaped control. The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver.

'Ah, deadlock seal.'

'You've got to do something,' Craig pleaded.

As the Doctor worked with the sonic, Sophie was released and fell back into Craig's arms.

'What? Why's it let her go?' The Doctor looked around the room, and saw the mummified remains of the pilot. 'So, okay . . .'

A man suddenly appeared in the room. 'You will help me,' he demanded.

'Right. Stop. Crashed ship, let's see. Hello, I'm Captain Troy Handsome of International Rescue. Please state the nature of your emergency.'

'The ship has crashed. The crew are dead. A pilot is required.'

'You're the emergency crash program. A hologram,' the Doctor reasoned. He sonicked the man. 'What, you've been luring people up here so you can try them out?'

The hologram flickered between an old man. 'You will help me.' A young man. 'You will help me.' And a young girl. 'You will help me.'

Sophie had recovered, and came to her senses. 'Craig, what is this? Where am I?'

'Hush,' the Doctor told her. He was thinking. 'Human brains aren't strong enough, they just burn. But you're stupid, though. You just keep trying,' he told the autopilot.

'Seventeen people have been tried. Six billion four hundred thousand and twenty six remain.'

'Seriously, what is going on?' Sophie asked again.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. 'Oh, for goodness sake. The top floor of Craig's building is in reality an alien space ship intent on slaughtering the population of this planet. Any questions? No, good.'

['Doctor. Rude!'] Rose told him.

'Yes, I have questions,' Sophie said.

'The correct pilot has now been found,' the Autopilot announced.

'Yes, I was a bit worried that you were going to say that.'

['He means you, Doctor, doesn't he?'] Rose realised.

The Autopilot used its energy to drag the Doctor towards the console. 'The correct pilot has been found . . . The correct pilot has been found . . . The correct pilot has been found.'

['What's happening?'] Rose asked.

['It's pulling me in. I'm the new pilot.']

['Could you do it? Could you fly the ship safely?']

['No, I'm way too much for this ship. My hand touches that panel, the planet doesn't blow up, the whole solar system does.']

'The correct pilot has been found.'

'No. Worst choice ever, I promise you. Stop this.'

['Doctor? It's getting worse,'] Rose told him as the shaking in the TARDIS increased.

'It doesn't want everyone,' the Doctor said. 'Craig, it didn't want you.'

'I spoke to him and he said I couldn't help him.'

'It didn't want Sophie before but now it does. What's changed?

Argh. No. No, I gave her the idea of leaving. It's a machine that needs to leave. It wants people who want to escape. And you don't want to leave, Craig. You're Mister Couch Potato Man.'

'Oh thanks!'

['Doctor!'] Rose called out in the Doctor's head as she was buffeted by the TARDIS.

'Craig, you can shut down the engine. Put your hand on the panel and concentrate on why you want to stay.'

'Craig, no!' Sophie cried.

'Will it work?'

'Yes.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

'Is that a lie?'

'Of course it's a lie.'

'It's good enough for me. Allons-y! Argh!' Craig put his hand on the nearest control panel, and the Doctor was released.

'CRAIG!' Sophie called to him.

['Doctor!'] Rose called again. She was now seriously worried that she and Andrea wouldn't survive much more of the buffeting.

Smoke was coming off Craig's hand. 'Craig, what's keeping you here? Think about everything that makes you want to stay here. Why don't you want to leave?' the Doctor asked him, as he slapped his face.

'Sophie. I don't want to leave Sophie. I can't leave Sophie. I love Sophie.'

'I love you, too, Craig, you idiot.' She put her hand on Craig's.

'Honestly, do you mean that?' Craig asked in disbelief.

'Of course I mean it. Do you mean it?'

'I've always meant it. Seriously though, do you mean it?'

'Yes.'

'What about the monkeys?' Craig asked her.

'Oh, not now, not again. Craig, the planet's about to burn. For God's sake, kiss the girl.'

'Kiss the girl!' Rose said in the TARDIS, and Craig and Sophie kissed, which released Craig's hand from the panel.

['Doctor?'] Rose asked in his head as the TARDIS stopped shaking. ['You've done it. Ha ha! You've done it. Oh, now the screen's just zeros. Now it's minus ones, minus twos, minus threes. Big yes.']

'Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me,' the Autopilot repeated.

['Big no,'] the Doctor thought back.

'Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me.'

Craig and Sophie came up for air from their epic first kiss. 'Did we switch it off?' Craig asked.

'Emergency shutdown,' the Doctor said. 'It's imploding. Everybody out, out, out!'

'Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me.'

['Doctor?'] Rose asked in concern.

'Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me.'

The Doctor, Craig and Sophie ran down the stairs and outside. The top floor and roof turned into the Timeship which then flew away, leaving a totally incongruous one story building at the end of an entirely two storey terrace. A man walked by carrying a child, oblivious to what had just occurred.

'Look at them,' Craig said. 'Didn't they see that? The whole top floor just vanished.'

'Perception filter. There never was a top floor.'

Back in the flat, the one and only flat, Craig and Sophie were snogging on the sofa. 'So have we spoiled our friendship, then?' Craig asked her.

'Totally ruined it,' she replied.

'And what about the monkeys? We could save them together, you know. Do whatever we want. I could see the point of Paris if you were there with me.'

'First, let's destroy our friendship completely,' Sophie said cheekily, and they started snogging again.

The Doctor entered the parlour from his room, and turned his back discreetly before leaving the keys on the sideboard and reaching for the door lock.

'Oi,' Craig called to him.

'What, you're trying to sneak off?' Sophie said as they got off the sofa and went to the door.

'Yes, well, you were sort of . . . busy,' the Doctor explained.

'I want you to keep these,' Craig told him, handing him the keys.

'Thank you,' the Doctor said. 'Because I might pop back soon, have another little stay.'

'No, you won't. I've been in your head, remember. I still want you to keep them.'

'Thank you, Craig.'

'Thank you, Doctor.'

The Doctor put a hand on each of their shoulders. 'Sophie. Now then. Six billion four hundred thousand and twenty six people in the world. That's the number to beat.'

Sophie laughed. 'Yeah.'

The Doctor left the flat, and went across the road to the now landed TARDIS.

'Back in time. You need to go to the paper shop and leave that note for me,' the Doctor told Rose, as he listened to the console with his stethoscope.

'Right little matchmaker, aren't ya Captain Handsome?' Rose said, bumping shoulders with him and smiling at Andrea in her arms.

'Ah, you heard that did you? Oh, rectifier's playing up again Hold on. You write the note and I'll change that will,' he told her as he lifted a panel to the under floor area.

'You got a pen?' Rose asked him.

'Make sure it's a red pen.'

'Okay. What do I write?'

'Ah, you have to decide that. There's a note in a shop window, and you have to bring it to my attention.'

'Right.' She put Andrea in the jump seat, took a pen out of the pot on the console without looking, and started writing.

"Doctor - this one no 79a Aickman Road Rose xx" she wrote in red ink, and drew a little arrow pointing down.


	10. The Pandorica Opens

**Chapter 15**

 **The Pandorica Opens**

'Bada-boom!' the Doctor said suddenly, making Rose and Andrea jump.

'Bada-what?'

'I can't believe I've never thought of this before. It's genius,' he said with a grin as he landed the TARDIS. 'Right, landed . . . Come on.'

'Where are we?'

'Planet One. The oldest planet in the universe. And there's a cliff of pure diamond, and according to legend, on the cliff there's writing. Letters fifty feet high. A message from the dawn of time And no one knows what it says, because no one's ever translated it . . . Till today.'

'What happens today?'

The Doctor kissed her on the lips, and kissed Andrea on the head. 'Us. The TARDIS can translate anything. All we have to do is open the doors and read the very first words in recorded history.'

They stepped outside, where the TARDIS had landed in between some giant mushrooms, and read the message.

"Hello Sweetie", it read, with some scientific symbols below.

'Bada-boom,' Rose said sarcastically.

'Right. Come on then. We've got to be somewhere,' he said, going back into the TARDIS.

'Where?'

'No idea. Isn't that brilliant!'

The TARDIS had materialised at the edge of a wood, on a hill. Rose stepped out with Andrea in her pushchair and looked around. It looked like Earth, but looks could be deceiving.

'Right place?' She asked her husband.

'Just followed the co-ordinates on the cliff face. Earth. Britain. One oh two a.m . . . No, p.m . . . No, AD.'

From their vantage point on the hill, they were looking down on an encampment. 'That's a Roman Legion,' Rose realised.

'Well, yeah. The Romans invaded Britain several times during this period.'

'Oh, I know. My favourite topic at school,' Rose told him. 'Invasion of the hot Italians.' The Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow. 'Yeah, I did get marked down for the title.'

A soldier ran up to them and banged his fist on his cuirass in salutation, and then knelt before him. 'Hail, Caesar!'

'Hi,' the Doctor replied, slightly bemused by the greeting.

'Welcome to Britain. We are honoured by your presence.'

The Doctor smiled, and winked at Rose. 'Well of course you are, you're only human. Arise, er, Roman fellah.'

'Why does he think you're Caesar?' Rose whispered. The Doctor noticed a smear of lipstick on the soldier's face, and had his suspicions.

'Cleopatra will see you now,' the soldier told him, and led the way down the hill to a large, opulent tent.

'Hello, sweetie,' River said as they entered the tent. She was dressed as an Egyptian queen.

'River!' Rose said. 'Hi.'

Rose thought she saw the briefest expression of confusion on River's face, as though she didn't know who she or Andrea were. And then she remembered The Library, the crash of the Byzantium, and River's diary.

"Her past, my future. Time travel. We keep meeting in the wrong order", the Doctor had told her and Amy. This River hadn't met her yet, and River knew not to ask too many questions about her future. It was better to let things happen and act surprised.

'You graffitied the oldest cliff face in the universe,' the Doctor said.

'You wouldn't answer your phone.' She clapped her hands, and one of her slaves handed her a rolled up canvas, which she offered to the Doctor.

'What's this?'

'It's a painting. Your friend Vincent. One of his final works. He had visions, didn't he? I thought you ought to know about this one.' The Doctor unrolled the canvas, and they looked at a version of Starry Night.

'Doctor? Doctor, what is this?' Rose asked, looking at the exploding TARDIS in the middle. 'Why is it exploding?'

'I assume it's some kind of warning,' River said.

'What, something's going to happen to the TARDIS?' Rose asked with concern. As far as she was concerned, the TARDIS was the safest place in the universe, and now she was worried that their daughter was inside the TARDIS in the painting.

'It might not be that literal,' River told her. 'Anyway, this is where he wanted you. Date and map reference on the door sign, see?'

'Does it have a title?' the Doctor asked her.

'The Pandorica Opens.'

Rose had heard that before. In his head, when he was thinking about the crack on the Byzantium. 'I've heard that before. "The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall" you said. What is it?'

'A box, a cage, a prison,' River said. 'It was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe.'

'And it's a fairy tale, a legend. It can't be real,' he told her.

'If it is real, it's here and it's opening, and it's got something to do with your TARDIS exploding.' The Doctor unrolled a velum map and laid it on the table. River continued. 'Hidden, obviously. Buried for centuries. You won't find it on a map.'

'No, but if you buried the most dangerous thing in the universe, you'd want to remember where you put it.' He looked at the map, and saw the most obvious place to hide the most dangerous thing in the universe. 'We're going to need transport.'

'I'll commandeer some horses,' River said, leaving the tent.

'Where are we goin'?' Rose asked the Doctor.

'About eight miles northwest of Sarum, or Salisbury as it will become known.'

'Oh right,' Rose said, and then thought about it. 'Hang on, Salisbury . . . Salisbury Plain. Isn't that where Stonehenge is?' She followed her reasoning. 'An obvious landmark for millennia, they've hidden it at Stonehenge, ain't they?'

He gave her that proud smile. 'Yep. That was my exact same reasoning.'

Rose looked at the tent opening, and back to the Doctor. 'River . . . has she met me yet? Cos for a moment there, the way she looked at me . . .'

'It's hard to tell with her,' he told her.

'So when you introduced me as Rose Tyler back on Alfava Metraxis, she could have already known that.'

'Could be,' he admitted. 'She hides it well if she has.'

'Almost as well as you do,' she said teasingly.

That hit close to home for him. If she only knew the things he had to keep to himself. He took Andrea's carry sling from the holdall in the back of the pushchair and handed it to Rose.

'Here, you'd better put this on while I fold down the pushchair.'

Rose put the sling on as he lifted Andrea out of the pushchair and stole a quick kiss.

'Better not let Madam catch you doin' that, or she'll know who we are.'

'Know whom "who" are?' River asked from the tent entrance.

'Er, me an' my daughter. I know you've met the Doctor before, but I don't know if you'd met me yet. I'm Rose, Rose Tyler, and this is my daughter, Andrea.'

River held out her hand and smiled. 'Nice to meet you Rose.' She rubbed Andrea's cheek with her finger. 'Hello Andrea.'

River looked at the Doctor, and then back to Rose. 'She's beautiful, like her mother. I'd ask you about the father, but I'm guessing there's a bit of a back story there. Spoilers and all that.'

"You have no idea", Rose thought as they went outside. Three slaves were holding the reins of the horses, and the Doctor fixed the collapsed pushchair to the back of the saddle.

Rose then realised that River no longer looked like Cleopatra. 'I've just noticed, you've changed your clothes.'

River laughed. 'Yeah, a shimmer outfit I picked up a while ago. An essential accessory when you live life in the fast lane.'

They galloped across a landscape that would become Wiltshire in Rose's time, and arrived at Stonehenge. They dismounted and hurried inside the circle of stones. The Doctor and River started scanning the stones.

'How come it's not new?' Rose asked. She expected the stones to all be upright and capped.

'Because it's already old,' River the archeologist told her. 'It's been here thousands of years. No one knows exactly how long.'

'No one?' the Doctor asked her.

'Oh don't tell me you were there,' Rose said.

'All right . . . I won't.' He continued to scan the stones with his sonic screwdriver.

He glanced at Rose, and saw that she was waiting for him to continue. "Gotcha" he thought to himself with a smile. 'A nice chap though, Caedric Starseer. A neolithic diplomat and a brilliant astronomer. He united the tribes with the vision of building a monument to the ancestors, and got a stellar observatory to boot.'

Rose rolled her eyes and turned to River. 'Okay, this Pandorica thing. Last time we saw you, you warned us about it, after we climbed out of the Byzantium.'

'Spoilers,' she replied, putting a finger to her lips.

'No, but you told the Doctor you'd see him again when the Pandorica opens.'

'Maybe I did,' River said mysteriously. 'But I haven't yet. But I will have.'

"I was right then," Rose thought to herself, "this is before the Byzantium for her."

'Doctor, I'm picking up fry particles everywhere. Energy weapons discharged on this site.'

'If the Pandorica is here, it contains the mightiest warrior in history,' the Doctor said, standing on the Altar stone, his long brown coat billowing in the wind. 'Now, half the galaxy would want a piece of that. Maybe even fight over it.' He jumped down and put an ear to the Altar stone. 'We need to get down there.'

'Well, we'd better get started then,' River said, heading back to the horses to offload her equipment. They set up perimeter lights as it started to get dark, and River attached four anti-gravity lifters on each corner of the Altar stone.

'Right then. Ready,' River asked, and then activated the lifters with her tablet device. There was a sound of machinery moving, and then the Altar stone moved aside to reveal stone steps down into the ground. River switched on her torch and shone it down the steps.

'The Underhenge,' the Doctor said quietly. He took out his sonic and used it as a torch.

They passed through a short, narrow tunnel, which opened out into a large chamber built from the base of the Sarcen Stones. The Doctor lit a wooden torch with his sonic screwdriver. River picked one up also and he lit it with his. The torches showed a large double door in the chamber with a wooden bar across it. With River's help, he lifted the bar and dropped it on the ground.

They pushed the doors open and walked through to see a large cube with circular, embossed designs on each side. 'It's a Pandorica,' the Doctor told them.

'More than just a fairy tale,' River said.

As they approached the cube, the Doctor's foot touched a Cyberman's severed arm lying in the dust of the floor.

The Doctor touched the Pandorica. 'There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.'

'How did it end up in there?' Rose asked.

'You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it,' the Doctor replied.

'I hate good wizards in fairy tales,' River told Rose. 'They always turn out to be him.'

Rose laughed. 'Yeah, and the hero in the myths and legends according to him.' She looked around the chamber. 'So, it's kind of like Pandora's Box, then? Almost the same name.'

'Sorry, what?' the Doctor said from the other side of the chamber.

'The story. Pandora's Box, with all the worst things in the world in it. That was my favourite book when I was a kid,' Rose told him, and saw the expression on his face. 'What's wrong?'

The Doctor thought about what she had told him recently. 'Your favourite school topic. Your favourite story. Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence.'

'So can you open it?' River asked him as he inspected the circular designs.

'Easily. Anyone can break into a prison. But I'd rather know what I'm going to find first.'

'You won't have long to wait. It's already opening.' River held her scanner against the Pandorica. 'There are layers and layers of security protocols in there, and they're being disabled one by one. Like it's being unlocked from the inside.'

'How long have we got?'

'Hours at the most.'

'What kind of security?' the Doctor asked.

'Everything. Deadlocks, time stops, matter lines.'

'What could need all that?'

'What could get past all that?'

'Think of the fear that went into making this box. What could inspire that level of fear?' he asked. He rested his head against the cube. 'Hello, you. Have we met?'

'So why would it start to open now?' River wondered.

'No idea.'

Rose wondered something else. 'Ahem, And how could Vincent have known about it? He won't even be born for centuries.'

Once again, Rose had asked the right question for her husband. 'The stones. These stones are great big transmitters, broadcasting a warning to everyone, everywhere, to every time zone. The Pandorica is opening.'

'Doctor, everyone everywhere?' River queried.

'Even poor Vincent heard it, in his dreams. But what's in there? What could justify all this?'

'Doctor, everyone?' River asked again, hoping he didn't actually mean everyone.

But the Doctor was deep in thought. 'Anything that powerful, I'd know about it. Why don't I know?'

'Doctor, you said everyone could hear it. So who else is coming?'

'Oh,' he said.

'Oh?' Rose said. 'Oh, what?'

River went to one of the stone pillars. 'Okay. If it is basically a transmitter, we should be able to fold back the signal.'

The Doctor started scanning each pillar in turn. 'Doing it.'

'Doing what?' Rose asked.

River explained it to her. 'Stonehenge is transmitting. It's been transmitting for a while, so who heard?'

'Okay, should be feeding back to you now. River, what's out there?'

'Give me a moment.'

'River, quickly. Anything?'

'Around this planet there are at least ten thousand starships.'

'At least?' Rose said in amazement.

'Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, I don't know. There's too many readings.'

'What kind of starships?' the Doctor asked her.

* * *

Rose was hiding in a stone cellar from a partially assembled Cyberman. She heard someone outside the wooden door. 'Doctor? Doctor?'

She jumped when a Roman short sword pierced the door, which swung open to reveal the Cyberman skewered to the wood.

She could see the outline of a Roman soldier in the doorway. 'Who, who are you?'

The Centurion removed his helmet. 'Hello, Rose,' Mickey Smith said before she passed out from the Cyberman sedative that had been injected into her.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa,' Mickey said as he caught her and gently lowered her and Andrea onto a stone.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was recovering from being electrocuted by the Cyberman's arm that had been firing at him. He heard an echoey voice. 'Sir, the man's coming round.'

'Rose? Andrea? Where are they?

'They're fine, Doctor,' Mickey told him, holding Andrea in his arms. 'Rose is just unconscious.'

The Doctor checked Rose. 'Okay. Yeah, she's sedated, that's all. Half an hour, she'll be fine.' He took his daughter off Mickey, without registering the fact that Mickey Smith was in Roman Britain. 'Okay, Romans. Good. I was just wishing for Romans. Good old River. How many?'

'Fifty men up top, volunteers. What about that thing?' Mickey said, nodding at the Pandorica.

'Fifty? You're not exactly a legion.'

'Your friend was very persuasive, but it's a tough sell,' Mickey told him. He'd sent River back to the Roman camp to get reinforcements.

'Yes, I know that, Mickey I'm not exactly one to miss the obvious,' he said without any hint of irony. 'But we need everything we can get. Okay, Cyber weapons. This is basically a sentry box, so headless wonder here was a sentry. Probably got himself mugged by the locals. Never underestimate a Celt.'

'Doctor?'

'Sush, Mickey. I'm thinking . . . Why leave a Cyberman on guard, unless it's a Cyberthing in the box. But why would they lock up one of their own? Okay, no, not a Cyberthing, but what? What? No, I'm missing something obvious, Mickey. Something big. Something right slap in front of me. I can feel it.'

Mickey gave him a lopsided smile. 'Yeah, I think you probably are.'

'I'll get it in a minute,' he said as he left with the Cyber weapons. He dropped the weapons, returned to the chamber and looked intently at Mickey, prodding him in the chest. 'Hello again.'

'Hiya,' Mickey replied.

'So . . . how've you been, Mickey Boy?'

'Good. Yeah. Good. I mean . . .' He looked down at his uniform. 'Roman.'

'Mickey I'm not trying to be rude, but how can you be here?'

'I don't know. It's kind of fuzzy.'

'Fuzzy?'

'Well, I was in this warehouse with Martha, trackin' a Sontaran. He must have circled around behind us, 'cus I remember gettin' shot, and then I'm a Roman. It's very distracting.'

'A Sontaran in a warehouse? I'll have look into that one.' The ground started to shake, and the circular designs on the Pandorica were glowing green and moving like cog wheels.

'What is it? What's happening?'

'The final phase. It's opening.'

Mickey ran out of the chamber to see what was happening outside.

The communicator that River had given the Doctor, buzzed for his attention. ['You're surrounded. Have you got a plan?'] River asked him.

'Yes. Now hurry up and get the TARDIS here. I need equipment.; He walked up to the Pandorica. 'What are you? They're all here, all of them, all for you. What could you possibly be?'

When Mickey got to the surface, he saw a sky full of alien craft buzzing Stonehenge. The Roman soldiers were either running around in a panic, or rooted to the spot in terror.

'Sorry, sorry, dropped it,' Mickey heard the Doctor say from the entrance of the Underhenge. 'Ah, the Mickey-Meister. Could you hold Andrea for a moment?' He handed his daughter to Mickey, and when he spoke again, his voice boomed out of the communicator.

'Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe. But bad news, everyone, because guess who? Ha!' he said, jumping up onto the Altar stone.

'Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING!' The alien craft stopped whizzing about.

'The question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer, Me!. Next question. Who's coming to take it from me? Come on! Look at me. No plan, no back up, no weapons worth-a-damn. Oh, and something else. I don't have anything to lose! So, if you're sitting up there in your daft little spaceship, with all your daft little guns, and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, JUST REMEMBER WHO'S STANDING IN YOUR WAY! REMEMBER EVERY BLACK DAY I EVER STOPPED YOU, AND THEN . . . AND THEN, DO THE SMART THING. Let somebody else try first.'

He stood on the Altar stone with his arms held out wide and turned in a circle, his coat swirling around him. After the booming of his voice, there was an eerie silence as nothing seemed to happen. And then, the spaceship's search lights went out, one by one, and they retreated.

'That'll keep them squabbling for half an hour,' the Doctor told Mickey. He looked around at all the soldiers with a smirk of admiration. 'Romans.'

They went back down to the Pandorica chamber. 'They're still out there. What do we do now?' Mickey asked.

'If I can stop whatever's in this box getting out, then they'll go home.'

'Right.'

The Doctor saw Rose get up off the stone slab and walk towards them. 'Oh, my head.'

She walked into an embrace with the Doctor. He held her face, kissed her on the lips, asked her to say "Ah", and looked in her mouth.

Rose said 'ah.'

'Just your basic knock-out drops. Get some fresh air, you'll be fine.'

'Is it safe up there?' she asked him.

'Nah, not a chance, but it's fresh.'

'Fine,' she said. She saw a Centurion was holding her daughter, and took her into her arms and gave her a big hug and cuddle. 'Thank you,' she said.

'Yer welcome Babe,' the Centurion said with a chuckle.

Rose immediately recognised the voice and looked at his face for the first time. 'Mickey!' she squealed with joy and went to hug him. She realised that Andrea would be squashed, and handed her to the Doctor.

'Oh, come here ya big hunk.' She gave him a hug around his neck and a kiss on the cheek. She then leaned back and studied his face. 'But how? How can you be here . . . be a Roman soldier?'

'Ah, already covered that one Love,' the Doctor said, handing back Andrea. 'We haven't got a clue, but I suspect it's got something to do with the crack in the wall.'

'Crack in the wall?' Mickey asked.

The Doctor led them out of the chamber as he explained. 'There are cracks. Cracks in time. There's going to be a huge explosion in the future, on one particular day. And every other moment in history is cracking around it.'

'So how does that work?' Mickey asked him. 'What kind of explosion? What exploded?'

'Doesn't matter. The cracks are everywhere now. Get too close to them and you can fall right out of the universe.'

'So I fell through a crack when that Sontaran shot me?'

'Basically,' the Doctor told him. 'Originally, I stopped it happening, but the crack has rewritten the time line.'

Rose sat on the Altar stone, cradling Andrea, and Mickey found a blanket to wrap around them.

'Thanks mate,' she said with a smile.

He returned the smile and nodded, before turning to the Doctor. 'So, how did I end up here?'

'I don't know, you shouldn't have. What happened? From your point of view, what physically happened?'

'Like I said, I was in the warehouse. I was arguin' with Martha, tellin' her it was no place for a married woman. And then I said if we went down to the factory floor, and down past a corridor, he wouldn't know that we were there.'

He gave them a lopsided grin. 'Famous last words, eh? I felt the energy blast hit me between the shoulder blades. I was surprised that it didn't hurt, and then I was just here, a Roman soldier. A proper Roman. Head full of Roman stuff. A whole other life, just here like I'd woken up from a dream. I started to think it was a dream, you and Rose and the TARDIS. And then today, in the camp, the men were talking about the visitors. The girl with the blonde hair. I thought you'd come back for me.'

'We didn't even know you were here,' Rose told him. 'We were followin' some directions that were left for us.'

'But I don't understand. Why am I here?'

'Because you are,' the Doctor said. 'The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles, and that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.'

* * *

River hurried up the ramp to the console, throwing her fleece jacket on the chair. 'Okay,' she said to herself and started the Time Rotor.

The TARDIS dematerialised, but it jerked. 'What's the matter with you?' she asked. 'What are you doing? What's wrong?'

The TARDIS lurched down the Time Vortex and stopped. River could hear creaking from somewhere within the TARDIS. 'Okay. You okay now?'

River stepped out of the TARDIS in the middle of a council housing estate at night. There was a Post Office, a take away, and some shops with shutters that had graffiti on them. 'Why have you brought me here?'

She took out her tablet, and started scanning the area. She found scorch marks on the Tarmac, and started to follow a trail of alien energy. It led to a security door of a block of flats called Bucknall House, and she noticed the lock on the security door had been vandalised.

She followed the trail up four flights of stairs, and along a landing to number forty eight, the door of which was hanging off its hinges. 'Rough neighbourhood,' she said to herself. 'Okay, so something's been here.'

She followed her scanner signal into a room on the left, which was obviously a teenage girl's bedroom. It was a mess. She wondered if it had always been messy, or if the place had been turned over by someone searching for something. She was right on both counts.

She noticed that the wardrobe and the draws had no clothes in them. There were dust free patches on the walls where River presumed photographs had been removed. It had the feel of a room where everything of personal or sentimental value had been removed. There was a book on the dishevelled bed, and River shone her torch on it. It was a picture book of The Story of Roman Britain.

She moved some of the clutter and found a copy of the Legend of Pandora's box. She remembered Rose telling the Doctor that it was her favourite book when she was a kid.

'Oh no,' River said, and went into the hallway. She shone her torch towards the unhinged door, and saw some letters on the floor. She picked them up and looked at the address labels. There were utility bills addressed to Mrs. J. Tyler, and a bank statement for Ms. R. M. Tyler.

She quickly made her way back to the TARDIS, and found a group of hoodies hanging around by the large, cylindrical bins.

'Hey, lookie what we got here,' one of the youths said, walking towards her. The other hoodies followed him and surrounded River.

'Hello boys,' she said sweetly. 'Looking for a bit of excitement are you?'

'Yeah. An' I reckon we've found it, eh lads?' the lead hoodie said, leering at her.

'Ooh, I think you're right,' River purred. 'But be careful what you wish for.' She nodded down, and the hoodie looked to see a pistol pointing at his groin.

He gasped and looked at her smiling face with terrified eyes. 'Now, I suggest you boys run along home, loverboy and I would like to be alone.'

The gang scattered, and River moved the gun to under his chin. Before she could tease him anymore, she heard the phone ringing inside the TARDIS. 'Oh, what a shame, I'll have to take that call. Never mind Sweetie, maybe I can come back later.'

She holstered the pistol, patted his cheek, and went inside the TARDIS. She ran to the console and picked up the phone.

['The TARDIS, where is it? Hurry up,'] the Doctor said urgently.

'Don't raise your voice, don't look alarmed, just listen,' River said calmly. 'They're not real. They can't be. They're all right here in the story book. Those actual Romans. The ones I sent you, the ones you're with right now. They're all in a book in Rose's flat. A children's picture book.'

['What are you even doing there?']

'It doesn't matter. The TARDIS went wrong. Doctor, how is this possible?'

['Something's using her memories. Rose's memories.']

'But how?'

['You said something had been there.']

'Yes. There's burn marks on the Tarmac outside the shops. Landing patterns.'

['If they've been to her flat, they could have used her psychic residue. Structures can hold memories, that's why houses have ghosts. They could've taken a snapshot of Rose's memories. But why?']

'Doctor, who are those Romans?'

['Projections . . . or duplicates.']

'But they were helping us. My lipstick even worked.'

['They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated.']

River found a stray photograph in the pages of the book. It was a selfie of Rose and Mickey in Trafalgar Square when she was on a lunch break from Henricks.

'Doctor, that Centurion,' River started to explain, and then had a realisation. 'It's a trap! It has to be. They used Rose to construct a scenario you'd believe, to get close to you.'

['Why? Who'd do that? What for? It doesn't make sense.'] He heard a bang in the TARDIS. ['River? River . . ? River, what's happening?']

'I don't know. It's the engines. Doctor, there's something wrong with the TARDIS, like something else is controlling it.'

['You're flying it wrong.']

'I'm flying it perfectly,' she told him. 'You taught me,' she admitted reluctantly.

['Where are you? What's the date reading?']

River checked the view screen. 'It's the 26th of June, 2010.'

['You need to get out of there now. Any other time zone. Just go.']

'I can't break free.'

['Well, then shut down the TARDIS. Shut down everything!']

'I can't!' She told him, and then paused as she heard a voice coming from all around her.

'Silence will fall . . . Silence will fall.'

'Someone else is flying it. An external force. I've lost control.'

The Doctor paced around the chamber, worried by this turn of events. 'But how? Why?' he asked River over the communicator, before a high pitched noise filled the chamber causing the Romans to slump over momentarily.

'Listen to me, just land her anywhere. Emergency landing, now. There are cracks in time. I've seen them everywhere, and they're getting wider. The TARDIS exploding is what causes them, but we can stop the cracks ever happening if you just land her.'

['It's not safe,'] River told him.

The Pandorica started to open, and a brilliant white light flooded the chamber.

'Well, now. Ready to come out, are we?' the Doctor said.

['Doctor? I'm down. I've landed.']

'Okay, just walk out of the doors. If there's no one inside, the TARDIS engines shut down automatically. Just get out of there.'

['I'm going.']

'Run!' he told River, and then noticed the Roman soldier's fingers drop away from their hands to reveal weapons.

['Doctor! Doctor, I can't open the doors!']

The Doctor realised that all the Romans were Autons, even Mickey. ['Rose!'] he called out in his thoughts.

Above the Doctor, in Stonehenge, Mickey was struggling against the Nestene Consciousness. 'Argh! No! No, please. No! I'm not going. I'm Mickey! Listen to me. You have to run. You have to get as far away from here as you can. I'm a thing! I'll kill you. Just go! Please, no, I don't want to go. I'm Mickey! I'm, I'm . . .'

'Smith. Mickey Smith from the Powell Estate. My best mate.' Rose told him.

'Rose, you've got to run. I can't hold on. I'm going.'

'You are Mickey Smith and you aren't going anywhere.'

Mickey's fingers dropped down to reveal the muzzle of a weapon.

Rose heard the Doctor call a warning in her mind. ['Rose!']

But it was too late. Mickey cried out. 'No.'

A single energy bolt passed through Andrea's body, killing her instantly, before hitting Rose. She gasped and started to cry as she fell into Mickey's arms.

Mickey cried in disbelief at what he had just done. 'No! No! No!'

'Doctor, I can't open the doors! Doctor, please, I've got seconds!' River said into the phone, but he was no longer there.

So, it was all down to her. She tried frantically to escape the TARDIS, and then she had an idea. She hooked the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and threw the switch to divert power through the lock. She ran down the ramp and threw the doors open to discover the TARDIS was parked right up against a rock wall.

'I'm sorry, my love,' she said quietly before the TARDIS exploded.

Down in the Pandorica chamber, the Doctor was being dragged along by two Auton soldiers, when he felt his daughter die and his wife get shot. ['ROSE! NO!']

['Oh my Love. I'm SO sorry,'] she weeped in his mind. ['I thought I could stop Mickey, and now Andrea's dead.']

['It's not Mickey, it's an Auton . . . Rose . . . I love you, and I will make this right. I promise you, I will make this right.']

He struggled against the Auton's grip, but they continued to drag him backwards. 'Plastic Romans. Duplicates, driven by the Nestene Consciousness, eh? Deep cover, but what for? What are you doing? What's in there, eh? What's coming out?'

'The Pandorica is ready,' the Centurion Marcellus announced.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder. 'What, do you mean it's open?'

The Cyberleader marched forward. 'You have been scanned, assessed, understood, Doctor.' Two more Cybermen materialised behind it.

'Scanned? Scanned by what, a box?' the Doctor asked.

'Your limits and capacities have been extrapolated.'

Judoon, Sontarans and Sycorax also teleported into the chamber.

'The Pandorica is ready,' the Sontaran, Stark declared.

'Ready for what?' the Doctor asked.

'Ready for you,' the Cyberleader told him.

The Doctor struggled against the grip of two Roman Autons as he was dragged closer and closer to the Pandorica He was fastened into the seat inside it. His arms, torso and head clamped in place with all his old enemies staring at him.

'You lot, working together. An alliance. How is that possible?'

'The cracks in the skin of the universe,' the Cyberleader started to explain.

'All reality is threatened,' Stark continued.

'All universes will be deleted,' the Cyberleader said.

'What? And you've come to me for help?' the Doctor asked angrily. 'You have a funny way of asking for it, by killing my wife and child.'

'No. We will save the universe from you!' Stark told him.

'From me?'

'All projections correlate. All evidence concurs. The Doctor will destroy the universe,' the Cyberleader said.

'No, no, no. You've got it wrong,' the Doctor told them.

'The Pandorica was constructed to ensure the safety of the Alliance,' Stark said.

'A scenario was devised from the memories of your mate,' the Cyberleader explained.

'A trap the Doctor could not resist,' Stark confirmed.

'The cracks in time are the work of the Doctor. It is confirmed,' the Cyberleader announced.

'No. no, no, not me, the TARDIS. And I'm not in the TARDIS, am I?'

'Only the Doctor can pilot the TARDIS,' the Cyberleader said.

'Please, listen to me!'

'You will be prevented.'

'Total event collapse!' the Doctor said. 'Every sun will supernova at every moment in history. The whole universe will never have existed. Please, listen to me!'

'Seal the Pandorica,' the Cyberleader commanded.

'No! Please, listen to me! The TARDIS is exploding right now and I'm the only one who can stop it! Listen to me!'

The Pandorica closed.


	11. The Big Bang

**Chapter 16**

 **The Big Bang**

In the British Museum, a young Rose Tyler hurried past the marble lion that gazed on the museum's Great Court with hollow, sorrowful eyes. 'Come on, Mum,' she called to Jackie.

They passed rows of carved Roman heads, hundreds of sightless eyes watching their progress. Then there were some sarcophagi, and a giant stone foot that seemed almost too comedic to be in such a serious place as a museum.

Then they came to a row of statues, sculpted human forms, some headless, some armless, but all possessed of a shining white dignity despite their misfortunes.

'Oh, look at that. That's good, innit?; Jackie said, looking at a statue of a beautiful young woman holding a cornucopia, overflowing with stone fruit and flowers, in the crook of one arm. The other arm was no longer whole, a wrist stump gesturing redundantly. 'The goddess Fortuna,' she read out loud.

'Not that,' Rose said. 'This way.' She wasn't interested in old, broken statues. She was there for one specific exhibit. The one in the pamphlet that was posted through the letterbox. The one that was ringed with red ink and the message saying, "Come along Rose".

'But we're not lookin' at anythin',' Jackie complained.

'This way!' Rose called again.

'Rose!'

She led Jackie to the Anomaly Exhibition, where she stopped to look at the exhibit of petrified Cybermen, and then pushed through the people standing looking at the Pandorica. Someone snatched her Original Cola drink from her. Suddenly there was a post-it note on the Pandorica, saying Stick around, Rose.

'Rose!' she heard her mother call after her, so she ran and hid.

'Rose? ROSE?'

Jackie searched all through the museum with the security staff, looking for her daughter. She was frantic with worry. Rose was her only daughter, her only link to her dead husband, Pete. She was her whole world.

'ROSE!' she shouted as it approached closing time.

['Rose Tyler, please go to the reception, please. Your mother is waiting for you there. Rose Tyler, please go to reception,'] a voice called over the Tannoy.

The security staff closed the museum, and advised Jackie to go to the police, and go home to see if she had made her own way there. The night security would continue to search the museum to see if Rose had fallen asleep somewhere in the building.

Later that night, young Rose crept out from the Penguin display, knocking some of them over. 'Sorry.'

She crept past the creepy exhibits to return to the Pandorica and remove the post-it note. She put her hand on the Pandorica and it started to open, filling the area with an intense white light. Young Rose backed away as the person inside spoke to her.

'Okay, kid. This is where it gets complicated,' an adult Rose gasped, as she stumbled out of the Pandorica with her crying daughter in the sling in front of her.

'Are you all right?' her younger self asked. 'Who are you?'

'I'm . . .' She was about to say Rose, and then realised who was asking. 'Fine. I'm supposed to rest. Got to rest, the Doctor says.'

'What Doctor?'

Rose tapped her head. 'He's in here. Left a message in my head like I'm an answerphone. Where am I? Hang on. British Museum, right? I was here before, once when I was little, and once . . .' She finally realised what was happening. 'Yeah, complicated. Let's see,' she said, assessing her height and the length of her hair. 'It's what, 1995?'

'Who are you?'

'It's a long story. Oh. A very long story.'

* * *

At Stonehenge, 1,894 years previously, the darkness was relieved by burning torches and braziers. Mickey had the bodies of Rose and Andrea lying across his lap. 'So the universe ended,' he told his best friend. 'You missed that, in 102 AD . . . I suppose this means you and I never get born at all. You would have laughed at that.' He stroked her hair off her face, and tucked it behind her ear as he used to do when they were together.

'Please laugh,' he pleaded. 'The Doctor said the universe was huge and ridiculous, and sometimes there were miracles. I could do with a ridiculous miracle about now.'

Suddenly, as if in answer to his wish, there was a flash of white light and the Doctor popped out of thin air, wearing a red fez with his sticky up hair sticking out instead of up, and carrying a mop under his arm.

'Mickety-Mick-Mickey! Listen, she's not dead! Welllll, she is dead, but it's not the end of the world. Welllll, it is the end of the world. Welllll, actually, it's the end of the universe. Oh, no. Hang on,' he said hurriedly, and then vanished.

'Doctor? DOCTOR!' Mickey shouted.

He reappeared, this time without the mop. 'You need to get me out of the Pandorica.'

Mickey looked puzzled. 'But you're not in the Pandorica.'

He reached inside his jacket pocket and reached out his sonic screwdriver. 'Yes, I am. Welllll, I'm not now, but I was back then.'

He scratched the back of his head and tugged his ear. 'Welllll, back now from your point of view, which is back then from my point of view. Time travel . . . Bonkers! You can't keep it straight in your head. It's easy to open from the outside.' He pointed the sonic screwdriver at Mickey to demonstrate. 'Just point and press.'

He gave Mickey his sonic screwdriver. 'Now go.'

The Doctor vanished and returned again. 'Oh, and when you're done, leave my screwdriver in her top pocket. Good luck.' He vanished again.

'What do you mean?' Mickey asked. 'Done what?'

He gently laid Rose and Andrea on the ground and covered them with a blanket, before going down to the Pandorica chamber. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the Pandorica and pressed the button. The chamber was filled with an intense bright light as the Pandorica opened, to reveal the Doctor strapped to the chair.

The chair started to release him. 'How did you do that?'

'You gave me this,' Mickey told him, holding up the sonic.

The Doctor took his screwdriver from his own pocket. 'No, I didn't.'

'You did. Look at it.'

The Doctor stepped out of the Pandorica and touched his screwdriver to Mickey's, causing them to spark. 'Temporal energy. Same screwdriver at different points in its own time stream. Which means it was me who gave it to you. Me from the future. I've got a future. Brilliant,' he said cheerfully, and then saw the fossilised Cybermen. 'Ooh, that's not.'

'Yeah. What are they?' Mickey asked, looking around the chamber at all the fossilised inhabitants.

'History has collapsed. Whole races have been deleted from existence. These are just like after-images. Echoes. Fossils in time. The footprints of the never-were.'

'Er, what does that mean?'

'Total event collapse. The universe literally never happened.'

'So, how can we be here? What's keeping us safe?'

'Nothing. Eye of the storm, that's all. Remember the Daleks? No one else does who wasn't in the Crucible. We're just the last light to go out.' He then remembered what happened to his wife and daughter. 'Rose and Andrea! Where are they?'

Without speaking, Mickey led him back to the surface. 'I killed them.'

'Oh, Mickey,' the Doctor said sadly as he pulled back the blanket to see his wife's beautiful face.

'Doctor, what am I?'

'You're a Nestene duplicate. A lump of plastic with delusions of humanity.'

'But I'm Mickey now. Whatever was happening, it's stopped. I'm Mickey.'

'That's software talking,' the Doctor said coldly.

'Can you help her? Is there anything you can do?' Nestene or not, he felt the guilt of his actions

'Yeah, probably, if I had the time.'

'The time?'

'All of creation has just been wiped from the sky. Do you know how many lives now never happened? All the people who never lived?' For the Doctor, it was Gallifrey all over again. 'My wife and daughter aren't more important than the whole universe.'

Mickey was incredulous. He grabbed the Doctor's shoulder, spun him around, and punched him on the chin.

'They bloody well should be,' Mickey said angrily. 'What kind of alien are you? They're your wife and daughter . . . my best mate and honorary niece.'

The Doctor worked his chin. 'Welcome back, Mickey Smith! Sorry. Had to be sure. Hell of a gun-arm you're packing there. Right, we need to get them downstairs. And take that look off your plastic face. This is my family we're bringing back to life.'

The Doctor gently picked up his wife, her head flopping backwards, her blonde hair falling back. His daughter was lying across her chest in the carry sling. With tears in his eyes, he carried them down the stone steps to the Pandorica chamber.

He placed Rose and Andrea in the Pandorica chair and kissed his daughter lovingly on her head, leaving a sample of his DNA from his lips. He stroked Rose's cheek, and gently brushed her lips with his. He was no Prince Charming though, and Rose was no Princess Aurora.

'So you've got a plan, then?'

'Bit of a plan, yeah. Memories are more powerful than you think, and Rose Lungbarrowmas is not an ordinary girl. Married a Time Lord. Remember what she did on the Crucible? She's got part of the TARDIS in her head,' he explained as he put two fingers on each of her temples.

'She had the universe pouring through her dreams every night. The Nestenes took a memory print of her and got a bit more than they bargained for, like you. Not just your face, but your heart and your soul.'

He mind-melded with Rose. 'I'm leaving her a message for when she wakes up, so she knows what's happening.' He then stepped out of the Pandorica and sealed the sides together.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?'

'I'm saving her. This box is the ultimate prison. You can't even escape by dying. It forces you to stay alive.'

'But she's already dead.'

'Well, she's mostly dead. The Pandorica can stasis-lock her that way. Now, all it needs is a scan of her living DNA and it'll restore her, and hopefully extrapolate that to Andrea with my DNA that I just left on her.'

'Where's it going to get that?'

'In about two thousand years.'

'She's going to be in that box for two thousand years?'

'Yeah, but we're taking a shortcut. River's vortex manipulator. Rubbish way to time travel, but the universe is tiny now. We'll be fine.'

'So hang on. The future's still there, then. Our world.'

'A version of it. Not quite the one you know. Earth alone in the sky. Let's go and have a look. You put your hand there. Don't worry. Should be safe.'

'That's not what I'm worried about,' Mickey said looking at the Pandorica.

'They'll be fine. Nothing can get into this box.'

'Well, you got in there.'

'Well, there's only one of me. I counted.'

'This box needs a guard. I killed the last one.'

'No! Mickey, no. Don't even think about it.'

'She'll be all alone.'

'She won't feel it.'

'You bet she won't.'

'Two thousand years, Mickey. You won't even sleep. you'd be conscious every second. It would drive you mad.'

'Will she be safer if I stay? Look me in the eye and tell me she wouldn't be safer.'

'Mickey, you . . .'

'Answer me!' Mickey demanded.

'Yeah. Obviously.'

'I killed her. How could I leave her?'

'Why do you have to be so human?'

'Because right now, I'm not,' Mickey said. He needed to pay a penance to his best friend for what he had done to her and her daughter.

'Listen to me. This is the last bit of advice you're going to get in a very long time. You're living plastic, but you're not immortal. I have no idea how long you'll last. And you're not indestructible. Stay away from heat and radio signals when they come along. You can't heal, or repair yourself. Any damage is permanent. So, for God's sake, however bored you get, stay out of . . .'

Mickey disappeared, along with the Pandorica Chamber, and was replaced by a fossilised Cyberman 'Trouble!' he finished saying as he saw the Cyberman approaching. 'Oh.'

He turned to run and saw his gorgeous, living wife and daughter, along with a young girl who he had seen win the bronze medal at the under seven's gymnastics competition at the Jericho Street Primary School. 'Ah, two of you . . . Complicated.'

'Delete! Weapons systems restoring,' the Cyberman said.

'Come on, Rose and Rose,' the Doctor said, grabbing their hands and running.

'Delete!'

They ran to a Middle Eastern montage, where the Doctor grabbed his wife and pulled her into a passionate kiss, being careful not to squash his daughter between them.

'Phew! I should get trapped in a stasis cube for two thousand years more often,' she joked, relieved to be in his arms again.

'Only if I'm right there with you,' he told her as he took a fez from a mannequin.

'What are we doin'?' she asked him.

'Well, we are running into a dead end, where I'll have a brilliant plan, that basically involves not being in one.'

A security guard walked into the Anomaly Exhibition, shining a torch. 'What's going on?'

The Doctor ran back to the Pandorica and looked around the corner. 'Get out of here. Go! Just run!'

'Drop the device!' the Cyberman commanded.

'It's not a weapon. Scan it. It's not a weapon, and you don't have the power to waste,' the Doctor called out.

'Scans indicate intruder unarmed.'

The guard dropped the torch and stepped forward. Rose gasped when she saw Mickey in a museum guard uniform.

'Y'reckon?' Mickey asked. His fingers dropped down and his Auton hand weapon appeared, which he used to shoot the Cyberman.

'Weapon impaired! Weapon . . .' the Cyberman leaned forward and stopped.

'Rose!' Mickey called to her.

'Mickey,' Rose called back.

They ran forward to each other and hugged. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. It just happened,' Mickey told her.

'Oh, Shut up,' she said as she kissed his cheek.

'Yeah, shut up, because we've got to go. Come on, the Doctor said.'

'I waited. Two thousand years I waited for you Babe. I owed you that.'

'No, still shut up,' Rose told him.

Young Rose tugged on the Doctor's sleeve. 'I'm thirsty. Can I get a drink?'

The Doctor looked down at her. 'I should imagine so,' he said as he dropped the fez on her head which covered her eyes. 'Not sure where from though,' he added.

He looked towards the Cyberman and the Pandorica beyond. 'The light. The light from the Pandorica, it must have hit the Cyberman.'

The Cyberman straightened up and lifted its gun arm.

'Out! Out! Out!' the Doctor ordered.

They ran to the Museum Reception. 'So, two thousand years. How did you do?' the Doctor asked Mickey as he closed the door and put the fez on his head.

'Kept out of trouble,' he answered.

'Oh . . . How?' the Doctor asked as he picked up a mop to bar the door.

'Unsuccessfully,' Mickey replied and then recognised the mop. 'THE MOP! That's how you looked all those years ago when you gave me the sonic.'

The Doctor looked at the mop in his hands. 'Ah. Well, no time to lose, then.' He tapped the buttons on the vortex manipulator and disappeared in a flash of light.

A second later, the Doctor returned. 'Oops, sorry.' He put the mop through the door handles to the Anomaly Exhibition.

'How can he do that?' young Rose asked. 'Is he magic?'

The Doctor used the vortex manipulator again to jump back to Roman Stonehenge, and then he reappeared. 'Right, let's go then.'

He led them up a flight of stairs and stopped half way up. 'Wait! Now I don't have the sonic. I just gave it Mickey two thousand years ago.' He disappeared and reappeared again.

'Right then,' he said, reaching into the top pocket of Rose's leather jacket, and retrieving his sonic screwdriver. He stole a quick kiss. 'Thanks Love. Off we go!'

Once again he started to run up the stairs and stopped. 'No, hang on. How did you know to come here?' he asked young Rose.

She showed him the museum leaflet that had been posted through the letterbox of 48 Bucknall House, and the post-it note from the Pandorica.

'Ah, my handwriting. Okay.' He grabbed a new leaflet and post-it note from the information desk and vanished. He returned seconds later with the drink he took from young Rose earlier. 'There you go . . . Drink up.'

'Is that a vortex manipulator you've got there?' Rose asked.

'Yes, it's River's. Cheap and nasty time travel. Very bad for you. I'm trying to give it up.'

'Yeah, I remember when we escaped from the Futurekind on Malcassairo,' Rose told him. 'Where are we goin'?'

'The roof.'

There was a flash of light at the top of the stairs, and a second Doctor appeared. He was without the fez, and his clothes were smoking. The Doctor ran up to himself, and scanned his body with the sonic.

'Doctor, it's you. How can it be you?' Mickey asked.

'Oh my God Love,' Rose gasped. 'Is that you?'

The Doctor held his other self's chin and turned its head from side to side. 'Yeah, it's me. Me from the future.'

The future Doctor's eyes flickered open and he suddenly sat up, grabbing the Doctor in a hug, and whispering in his ear, before falling back again.

'Are you . . ? I mean, is he . . . is he dead?' Rose asked hesitantly.

'What?' the Doctor said distractedly as he stood up. 'Dead? Yes, yes. Of course he's dead. Right, I've got twelve minutes,' he said as he ran up the stairs. 'That's good.'

'Twelve minutes to live? How is that good?' Rose asked angrily. She'd just seen her husband die in front of her.

'Oh, you can do loads in twelve minutes. Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath. Come on, the roof.'

'We can't leave you here dead,' Mickey told him.

'Oh, good. Mickey the idiot. Are you in charge now? So tell me, what are we going to do about Rose's younger self?' the Doctor said.

Rose looked around and saw a discarded drink of cola on the floor. 'Where'd she go?'

They ran down the stairs. 'ROSE?' Mickey called out, only to hear his voice echo back to him.

'There is no younger Rose. From now on, there never was. History is still collapsing,' the Doctor explained.

'But how can I still be here if she's not?' Rose asked.

'You're an anomaly. We all are. We're all just hanging on at the eye of the storm. But the eye is closing, and if we don't do something fast, reality will never have happened. Today, just dying is a result. Now, come on!' He ran out of view.

Rose stroked her daughter's head. 'He won't die Sweetheart. Time can be rewritten. He'll find a way. I know he will.'

Mickey covered the dead Doctor with his jacket.

'Move it! Come on!' the Doctor shouted from somewhere ahead of them.

They ran after him, and climbed a ladder to the roof trapdoor. 'What, it's mornin' already?' Rose asked him as she followed him out onto the roof. 'How did that happen?'

'History is shrinking. Is nobody listening to me? The universe is collapsing. We don't have much time left.' He sonicked a satellite receiver dish off its pole.

'What are you doin'?' Mickey asked him.

'Looking for the TARDIS,' he replied.

Mickey frowned. 'But the TARDIS exploded.'

'Okay then, I'm looking for an exploding TARDIS.'

'I don't understand,' Rose said. 'So, the TARDIS blew up and took the universe with it. But why would it do that? How?'

The Doctor gave her a proud smile. 'Good question for another day. The question for now is, total event collapse means that every star in the universe never happened. Not one single one of them ever shone. So, if all the stars that ever were are gone, then what . . .' He pointed his sonic screwdriver at a large burning ball in the sky. 'Is that? Like I said, I'm looking for an exploding TARDIS.'

'But that's the sun,' Mickey told him.

'Is it? Well, here's the noise that sun is making right now.' He sonicked the receiver dish, and they heard the wheezing, grinding noise of the TARDIS. 'That's my TARDIS burning up. That's what's been keeping the Earth warm.'

Mickey's Auton hearing detected another noise. 'Doctor, there's somethin' else. There's a voice.'

'I can't hear anythin',' Rose said.

'Trust the plastic,' Mickey told her.

The Doctor adjusted the frequency of the sonic. ['I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love.']

'Doctor, that's River,' Rose said, puzzled. 'How can she be up there?'

'It must be like a recordin' or somethin',' Mickey suggested.

'No, it's not . . . Of course, the emergency protocols. The TARDIS has sealed off the control room and put her into a time loop to save her. She is right at the heart of the explosion.'

['I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love.']

* * *

River was frantically trying to escape the TARDIS, when she had an idea. She hooked the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and cranked the handle to divert power through the lock. She ran down the ramp and threw the doors open to discover the TARDIS was parked right up against a rock wall.

'I'm sorry, my love,' she said quietly before . . . hooking the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and cranking the handle to divert power through the lock. Running down the ramp and throwing the doors open, she discovered the TARDIS was parked right up against a rock wall.

'I'm sorry, my love,' she said quietly before . . . hooking the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and cranking the handle to divert power through the lock. Running down the ramp, she saw the Doctor, who was wearing a fez and leaning against the door.

'Hi, honey. I'm home,' home he said jokingly.

River looked at her watch. 'And what sort of time do you call this?'

He held out his arm for her to take. 'Time to get you out of here.'

She took his arm and he activated the vortex manipulator to take them back to the roof of the museum.

'Rose!' River said as they appeared in a flash of light. 'And the plastic Centurion?'

'It's okay, he's on our side,' the Doctor told her.

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

'I dated a Nestene duplicate once. Swappable head. It did keep things fresh,' she said saucily. 'Right then, I have questions, but number one is this . . . What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?'

'It's a fez. Isn't it brilliant?'

River and Rose exchanged a look which, for the first time brought them together in agreement. Rose snatched the fez and threw it into the air, and River shot it to pieces.

'Oh!' the Doctor exclaimed.

They were looking at the exploding TARDIS, when they saw the Cyberman rise up above the parapet. 'Delete.'

'Run, run! Move, move. Go!' the Doctor called out to everyone.

'Come on!' Mickey said.

The Doctor picked up the satellite dish and used it as a shield, deflecting the energy bolts as they went back into the museum.

They made it down the ladder, and the Doctor closed the trapdoor. 'Doctor, come on,' River called up to him.

'Shush,' he said, listening at the hatch. 'It's moving away, finding another way in. It needs to restore its power before it can attack again. Now, that means we've got exactly four and a half minutes before it's at lethal capacity.'

'How do you know?' Mickey asked.

'Because that's when it's due to kill me.'

'Don't say that,' Rose told him angrily.

'Kill you?' River asked. 'What do you mean, kill you?'

'Oh, shut up. Never mind. How can that Cyberman even exist? It was erased from time and then it came back . . . How?'

'You said the light from the Pandorica . . .' Mickey started to suggest.

'It's not a light, it's a restoration field,' the Doctor told him. 'But never mind, call it a light. That light brought Rose and Andrea back, restored them, but how could it bring back a Cyberman when the Cybermen have never existed?'

'Okay, tell us,' Rose said.

'When the TARDIS blew up, it caused a total event collapse. A time explosion. And that explosion blasted every atom in every moment of the universe. Except . . .'

Rose realised where his thoughts were going. 'Except inside the Pandorica.'

The Doctor pointed at her. 'The perfect prison. And inside it, perfectly preserved, a few billion atoms of the universe as it was. In theory, you could extrapolate the whole universe from a single one of them, like, like cloning a body from a single cell. And we've got the bumper family pack.'

Mickey shook his head. 'No, no. Too fast. I'm not gettin' it.'

'The box contains a memory of the universe, and the light transmits the memory, and that's how we're going to do it.'

'Do what?' Rose asked.

'Relight the fire. Reboot the universe. Come on!'

'Doctor, you're being completely ridiculous,' River told him. 'The Pandorica partially restored one Cyberman. If it can't even reboot a single life form properly, how's it reboot the whole of reality?'

'What if we give it a moment of infinite power? What if we can transmit the light from the Pandorica to every particle of space and time simultaneously?'

'Well, that would be lovely, dear, but we can't, because it's completely impossible.'

'Ah no, you see, it's not. It's almost completely impossible . . . One spark is all we need.'

'For what?'

'Big Bang Two! Now listen . . .'

Without warning, the Cyberman shot the Doctor. 'Delete! Delete!'

Mickey pushed Rose and Andrea around the corner as River knelt down to check on the Doctor. 'Get back. River, get back now!'

'Delete!'

Mickey used his Auton hand weapon to shoot at the Cyberman, causing it to power down again.

'Doctor? Doctor, it's me, River. Can you hear me? What is it? What do you need?' He activated the vortex manipulator and vanished.

'Where did he go?' River asked. 'Damn it, he could be anywhere.'

'He went downstairs,' Rose said quietly with tears in her eyes. 'Twelve minutes ago.'

'Show me!' River said urgently.

'River, he died,' Rose told her angrily. She'd had enough of River's bossiness. It was the second time in twelve minutes that she'd seen her husband die.

'Systems restoring. You will be deleted,' the Cyberman said.

'We've got to move. That thing's coming back to life,' Mickey said.

'You go to the Doctor . . . I'll be right with you,' River informed him.

Mickey led Rose away to the stairs where her husband's body lay.

'You will be deleted!' the Cyberman declared.

'Not yet. Your systems are still restoring, which means your shield density is compromised. One Alpha Mezon burst to your chest disc would kill you stone dead.'

'Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's.'

'I'm River Song. Check your records again.'

'Mercy,' the Cyberman said in an emotionless voice.

'Say it again,' River taunted.

'Mercy!'

'One more time.'

'Mercy!'

When Mickey and Rose came to the top of the stairs that led down to the Museum Reception, they could see Mickey's jacket, but no Doctor.

'How could he have moved? He was dead,' Mickey said. 'Doctor? DOCTOR!'

'But he was dead,' Rose declared.

'Who told you that?' River asked as she came down the stairs.

'HE did,' Rose said, referring to her husband.

'Rule one . . . The Doctor lies,' River told her.

Although Rose was annoyed by River's attitude, she couldn't help thinking that if he had lied, then he might still be alive. 'Where's the Cyberman?'

'It died,' is all she would say.

River led the way back to the Anomaly Exhibition, where they could see the unconscious Doctor sitting in the Pandorica.

Rose ran into the Pandorica. 'Doctor!' she cried, cradling his face in her hands.

'Why did he tell us he was dead?' Mickey asked.

Rose had worked it out. 'We were a diversion. As long as the Cyberman was chasin' us, he could work down here.' She turned back to her husband. 'Doctor, can you hear me? What were you doin'?'

The light from the TARDIS was getting brighter outside.

'What's happenin'?' Mickey asked.

'Reality's collapsing,' River told him. 'It's speeding up. Look at this room.'

Mickey looked around the room, and all the display cases were empty. 'Where'd everythin' go?'

'History's being erased. Time's running out,' River said.

Rose looked out of the Pandorica to see what was happening, and then turned back to the Doctor. 'Doctor, what were you doin'? Tell me. Doctor!'

'Big-Bang-Two,' the Doctor whispered.

'The Big Bang. That's the beginnin' of the universe, right?' Mickey asked.

'What, and Big Bang Two is the bang that brings us back? Is that what you mean?' Rose asked the Doctor.

'The TARDIS is still burning. It's exploding at every point in history. If I throw the Pandorica into the explosion, right into the heart of the fire.'

'Then what?'

'Then . . . let there be light,' he said quietly. 'The light from the Pandorica will explode everywhere at once.'

'That would work? That would bring everythin' back?'

'A restoration field powered by an exploding TARDIS, happening at every moment in history? Yeah, it'll work.'

'And how do we do it?' Rose asked hesitantly, dreading the answer.

'I've wired the vortex manipulator to the rest of the box. I'm going to fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion.'

'But what happens to us?' she asked, stroking Andrea's head.

'You all wake up where you ought to be. None of this ever happens and you don't remember it.'

'Tell me you come back, too.'

'I come back too,' he said with a wry smile.

'Liar!' she cried.

'I'll be the heart of the explosion.'

'So?'

'So all the cracks in time will close, but I'll be on the wrong side, trapped in the never-space, the void between the worlds. All memory of me will be purged from the universe. I'll never have been born.'

'No! I don't want to forget you. I want Andrea to know her dad.'

'Nothing is ever forgotten. Not really. But you have to try.'

'Doctor! It's speeding up!' River called from outside.

Rose put the Doctor's sonic screwdriver in his pocket.

'There's going to be a very big bang. Big Bang Two. Try and remember your friends and they'll be there.'

'How can I remember them if they never existed?'

'Because you're special. You've looked into the Eye of Harmony, the heart of the TARDIS, and the TARDIS has looked into you. You share a bond that transcends time and space. You brought Mickey back, you can bring everyone else back. You just remember and they'll be there.'

'And you?'

'And me? I'll be all right,' he said with a sad smile. 'I'm . . .'

'Always all right,' Rose finished for him, wiping the tears from her eyes. She held Andrea up so that he could kiss her cheek, and then she kissed him passionately one last time.

'Are you okay?' Mickey asked her as she stepped out of the Pandorica.

'Are you?'

'No.'

'WELL, SHUT UP THEN!' she shouted angrily, and immediately felt guilty about shouting at her best friend. They looked at each other and Mickey pulled her into a hug as she burst into tears.

The Pandorica closed and started to levitate. 'Back!' River called out. 'Get back!'

The Pandorica took off and rocketed through the roof of the museum. They huddled against the wall, and River got a text message on her communicator. 'It's from the Doctor.'

'What does it say?' Rose asked urgently, wanting to read the last message from her love.

River showed her. 'Allons-y,' she read out loud.

The Pandorica reached the TARDIS and caused an intense bright light as they exploded together. There was then another explosion as everything reversed back.


	12. At the going down of the sun

**Chapter 17**

 **At the going down of the sun and in the morning. She will remember him**

Rose Tyler was woken by the sound of her one year old daughter babbling to herself in the nursery. She smiled as she listened to the one sided conversation. Andrea was such a happy and content baby, that Rose felt she was blessed to have such a lovable little angel.

'Mamamamama,' she heard her call out. It was uncanny that her daughter always seemed to know when she woke up. And sometimes, Rose was sure she could tell when her daughter needed something or when she was getting upset because she wanted something.

She threw the duvet off her and climbed out of bed. She had a busy day ahead of her, and she was looking forward to it. She was meeting some old friends and needed to make an early start. She padded through to Andrea's room, and found her standing in her cot, holding onto the railings, and beaming a smile at her.

'Mornin' Sweetheart. You ready for yer breakfast are ya?'

Andrea held her arms up for her mother to pick her up. Rose lifted her out of the cot and kissed her cheek. She took her through to the kitchen and sat her in her high chair. She put a rusk in a bowl, and then took some formula milk out of the fridge and put it in the microwave.

Whilst the microwave hummed away, she looked out over the Powell Estate. It didn't occur to her to wonder why she was living in the flat on her own. Her mother had left a while ago, and she knew she was happy in her new life abroad. (Well, she presumed it was abroad.)

Also, she never questioned where Andrea's father was. Having lived on the estate all her life, she was used to the idea of single mothers, and being one herself didn't seem out of the ordinary. As she daydreamed, the hum of the microwave turned into a more complex hum, a hum that hinted of alien spaceships.

She was brought back to reality by the ding that told her that the milk was warm enough to pour on the rusk so that it could be mushed into a porridge. She put the bowl on the tray in front of Andrea, and handed her the plastic spoon. She knew it would be messy, but her independent daughter loved to feed herself, and Rose enjoyed watching her have fun.

After cleaning up the kitchen, and washing and dressing her daughter, she had a quick shower herself and put on her jeans, T-shirt and blue hoodie. She went to the living room, where Andrea was sitting in her playpen, playing with her toys. Rose then remembered the envelope on the mantlepiece, and heard a voice in the back of her mind say, "Nothing is ever forgotten. Not really. But you have to try." Although her brain had heard the voice, Rose was completely unaware of it.

She took the wedding invitation out of the envelope and read it again. It was from her friends Amy and Rory who lived in Leadworth in Gloucestershire. They were getting married tomorrow, and she and Andrea had been invited.

She couldn't really remember how she had met Amy, and her subconscious brain had concocted a scenario to fill in the missing information. All Rose knew, was that her Mini had gotten a puncture, and she thought that Amy was a Woman Police Constable. They both laughed when Amy told her she was a kissogram, and then Amy had called her boyfriend Rory to help her change the tyre.

She looked at the back of the invitation and found the R.S.V.P information, which was Amy's mobile phone number.

"I need you to help Amy Pond remember her family," her brain heard the voice say.

Rose dialled the number.

['Hello?'] a female voice with a Scottish accent asked.

'Amy . . . It's Rose.'

['Rose! How are you? You are still coming tomorrow aren't you?']

'Oh yeah. I wouldn't miss it, and your timing is perfect. I've got a week off from Henrick's at the moment so gettin' there won't be a problem . . . So, are you all ready for the big day?'

['What do you think?'] Amy said in a "you must be joking" tone of voice.

Rose laughed. 'Not a chance, but I bet your mum and dad are really excited and proud.'

There was a pause before Amy spoke again. ['Mum and dad?'] she said thoughtfully, as though the idea of a mum and dad were new to her.

['MUM? DAD? ARE YOU THERE?'] she heard Amy shout down from her bedroom. [['Yes Sweetheart. I'm in the kitchen. What's the matter?']] Amy's mother, Tabitha called back up the stairs.

['Nothing,'] Amy called, and then seemed to realise the enormity of what that meant. ['Nothing at all . . . In fact, everything is brilliant.'] She came back to Rose on the phone. ['Everything is absolutely brilliant. I don't know about mum and dad being excited, I'm fit to burst.']

Rose laughed. 'Ahh, that's great. I only phoned to make sure everythin' was all right for tomorrow. I'll see you then.'

['Yeah. See you tomorrow, and Rose . . . thanks for phoning. You've made my day.']

* * *

Later that morning, Rose was sitting in a Costa coffee shop on Oxford street, while her friend and adoptive mum, Sarah Jane cooed over Andrea.

'I can't believe how big she is,' Sarah Jane said as she played with her honorary niece.

'She certainly enjoys her food,' Rose laughed. 'When she manages to get it in her mouth anyway.'

'And you Rose, how are you coping?'

'Oh I'm all right,' Rose told her, and had a feeling of deja vu as she said, 'I'm always all right . . . I mean, you're a single mum yerself.'

Sarah Jane laughed. 'Yes. But Luke's a teenager.'

'An' isn't that when they're supposed to get worse?'

'Yes, they do say that don't they.'

There was silence for a moment while Rose hesitated about what she was going to say next. 'Sarah, have you ever thought that you're missing somethin'? Y'know, that there's somethin' important you should know or should be doin'?'

Sarah Jane laughed. 'Frequently in my line of work.'

Rose laughed with her. 'No, I mean have you ever felt your life feels . . . not wrong, but different to how it should be.'

'What, like when children feel that they are adopted or something like that?' Sarah Jane asked.

A barista used the milk frother behind the counter, which created a wheezing noise that gave Rose and Sarah Jane another moment of deja vu, as they remembered the noise of the TARDIS without knowing what it was.

'Yeah, that's it,' Rose said distractedly as she looked at the barista. He had his back to her, but she could see he had sideburns and great, sticky up hair.

Sarah Jane could see she was staring at something, and followed the direction of her gaze. 'Fancy your chances,' she asked with a knowing smile.

'What? Oh, no. I was just thinkin' he looked familiar somehow.'

It was Sarah Jane's turn to have a deja vu moment of her own, when in her mind's eye she saw a man in a tight, brown pinstriped suit standing in front of a red phone box in a school basement. Her subconsciousness knew it was a phone box of some kind and helpfully filled in the gap with a modern red one.

'Oh yes, I see what you mean. I feel as though I should know him.' Sarah Jane waggled her eyebrows and gave her a cheeky smile. 'You could always go over and say hello. You never know, you might know him from school or something. You could go for a drink and catch up.'

'Sarah Jane! Will you ever stop tryin' to fix me up with a date?'

'Only when I've succeeded.'

'That is SO sweet,' Rose said, and then looked at her watch. 'Ooh is that the time already. Sorry, I'm on a tight schedule today.'

Rose put Andrea in the pushchair, then hugged and kissed Sarah Jane. 'See you next week?' she asked.

'Of course Rose. Give me a call.'

As Rose left the coffee shop, Sarah Jane looked over to the counter, and the unfamiliar, yet somehow very familiar barista and his wheezing milk frother.

* * *

'Rosie!' Jack Harkness called to her as she walked past the fountain in Trafalgar Square.

'Jack!' she called back with delight, as she saw her old friend and hurried over to him. He lifted her off her feet in a big hug.

'Looking good kid,' he told her as he put her back on her feet. 'And little Missy there is getting bigger every time I see her.'

'Which isn't very often these days. Thanks for callin' an' lettin' me know you were gonna be in Town.'

'What? And miss a chance to see my favourite girl? No problem. You got time for a bag of fries?'

'They're chips,' she told him with a roll of her eyes. 'And yeah, I'd love a bag.'

Jack bought two bags of chips, and they sat by the fountain as they ate them and caught up on their news. Rose would blow on a chip to cool it and give it to Andrea to eat.

'So, you ever gonna tell me what you get up to in Cardiff?'

'There's nothing to tell really,' he lied. 'All boring government stuff.'

'Yeah, right!' Rose said, not believing a word of it.

They were quiet as they ate a chip each, and Rose thought about the question she had asked Sarah Jane. When she had asked the question, it was as if it had focussed her thoughts and brought her closer to an explanation for the feelings she was having lately.

'I know you do sciency stuff in Cardiff, and I don't know how to put it . . . but have you ever come across people who don't quite fit the life they're living?'

Jack frowned. 'What do you mean? Like a doppleganger or a changeling?'

'I might do, if I knew what they were.'

'It's where someone is taken, kidnapped or assassinated, and substituted with someone else who then lives their life. Like "The Prince and the Pauper".'

Rose shrugged. 'I suppose, although it's more like the same person living a different life . . . Does that make sense.'

'Not really. Is that how you feel at the moment? Is it all getting too much for you?' He asked with concern. He knew how depression could affect people's perception of reality.

She saw the worried look on his face and smiled as she stroked his face. 'Nah. I'm fine, honestly. It's just lately, I've had plenty of time to think and reminisce. It's probably that, although . . . when I think back, I can't even remember when or how we met.'

Jack laughed. 'Don't you remember? I caught you when you fell . . .' He stopped and frowned. 'You were hanging on a rope . . . There was Big Ben . . . Why am I thinking about people in gas masks?'

'Oh thank God! I thought it was just me seein' weird stuff when I tried to remember how I met my friends,' Rose told him.

'That is weird,' he agreed. 'Tell you what, I'll look into it when I get back to Cardiff.'

'Would you? That would be great. Thanks.'

Jack finished his chips and screwed up the paper. 'Well, duty calls. Allons-y.'

Rose gasped. 'What did you say?'

'Alan Seer. He works for UNIT. I've got a meeting with him,' Jack said. He kissed Andrea on her head, and kissed Rose on each cheek. 'It hasn't been long enough, has it. I'll have to come and stay over next time. You can lead me astray.'

Rose giggled and squeezed his hand. 'Give me a call before you come and I'll fix up the spare room for ya.'

As they moved across Trafalgar Square, they saw a man walking ahead of them with short, dark hair and sticky out ears. He was wearing a black leather jacket and black trousers, and privately, they both felt as though they should know a man like that.

* * *

'Oh Rose. She's adorable,' Martha said as she tickled Andrea and got a deep chuckle in return.

'Yeah, but she can have her moments,' Rose told her.

'No, not this little cherub,' Martha said.

'Dinner in five minutes,' Mickey said as he stuck his head around the door. They had invited Rose over for dinner.

'Thanks Love,' Martha said, and led Rose over to the dining table.

'I can't believe the change in Mickey. How did you manage it? All I could get him to do was pick up the phone for a take away.'

'It was my mum,' Martha told her.

'Your mum?'

'Yeah. It was before we were married. We invited mum and dad over for dinner, and Mickey was terrified of her.'

'Was not!' Mickey said, as he brought through the casserole.

'I could understand it if you were,' Rose said with a laugh.

Martha continued. 'Anyway, he started watching the cookery programs, and got an app on his phone. Next thing I know, I'm getting really nice meals.'

They sat down and ate a really nice meal, before retiring to the comfy sofa to finish their drinks. Mickey had pureed some of the food for Andrea, and Rose was about to feed it to her.

'Can I do that?' Martha asked her.

'Er, yeah. Sure. Knock yerself out,' Rose said.

Martha took Andrea and sat her on her knee. She then scooped up the food with the plastic spoon and fed her like a little sparrow.

'Gettin' broody are ya?' Rose asked with a cheeky grin. 'Are ya thinkin' of startin' a family?'

'God no!' Martha said. 'Not yet anyway. I've only just gone freelance.'

'Freelance?'

'Yeah. It was Mickey's idea, and to be honest, it's brilliant.'

Rose eased back on the sofa and relaxed as she had a sip of her Henry. Next to the fireplace, was a tall, cylindrical lamp filled with bubbling liquid, and giving off a green light. For a moment, just an instant, she thought she could see a plunger in the lamp moving up and down, and hear the sound of the milk frother from Costa's.

'Rose? you all right Babe?' Mickey asked.

Rose jerked out of her reverie. 'Eh? What?'

'It was like you were havin' some kind of vacant episode, and your eyes . . . They were kinda weird.'

'What was wrong with my eyes?'

Mickey was already starting to rationalise what he had seen. 'It must have been a reflection of light or somethin', but for a second there, I could have sworn I saw a flash of gold light in your eyes.'

Rose felt tears in her eyes, and wiped them away with her fingers. 'Mickey, we've known each other for ages now, ain't we?'

'Yeah, ages. Rose, what's up?'

'I think I might be goin' crazy. I have these dreams, vivid dreams. I have flashes of images and sounds that seem SO familiar, and yet they're not. And I can't remember things . . . simple stuff. Like Martha, I can't remember when or where we first met.'

Martha's training kicked in. She handed Andrea to Mickey and sat in front of Rose to examine her. 'When did you last have a medical check up?'

'When Andrea was born, and I got a clean bill of health,' Rose told her, as Martha took her pulse and checked the glands in her neck.

'But that's not the point, 'cos it's not just me.' She looked at Mickey. 'Mickey, how did you and Martha meet?'

'What's that got to do with anythin'?' Mickey asked.

'Everythin'! Go on, both of ya, when and where did you first meet?'

Mickey looked at Martha. 'Well, it was a video conference. She was on a video screen and I thought she looked hot.'

Martha laughed. 'Hot? Really?' she said before answering Rose's question. 'Yeah, I was at UNIT . . . I was . . .' and then she faltered as she tried to remember the details.

'You see?' Rose said. 'That's what I've been gettin'. You don't even know that you don't know.' She looked at their puzzled faces. 'I'm sorry. I've ruined a very pleasant evening. I'd better be goin'.'

'No, it's all right Rose. Please don't rush off,' Martha said kindly. 'Stay for a coffee . . . Please?'

Rose smiled. 'Okay, thanks. But I'd better start gettin' Andrea ready; it's gettin' close to her bed time.'

Both Mickey and Martha completely forgot about the question of how they met, and started chatting with Rose about their day to day lives. It was if their brains were deliberately avoiding the subject (which they were). They had met under circumstances that had never happened, and so their present reality was based on a paradox.

It was after ten when Rose returned home to her flat, and she went through what she believed was her usual night time routine. She changed Andrea's nappy and put her into her sleep suit, before snuggling up on the sofa in front of the television, where she nursed her with a final feed to soothe her to sleep.

When Andrea finished suckling and Rose had got her wind up, she took her through to the nursery and lay her in her cot for the night. Rose went through to her bedroom and changed into her pyjamas, before going back to the lounge for an hour to herself in front of the television with a cup of hot chocolate before bed.

That night, Rose had a strange, apparently disjointed, vivid dream which seemed so detailed and imaginative. If she could remember it, it would make a brilliant TV science fiction show.

Shop mannequins came to life and tried to kill her. As in all dreams, she could feel the emotions, and she was terrified. Who was that man who took her hand and told her to run? She felt the thrill of running over Westminster Bridge to the London Eye.

There were all sorts of weird and wonderful beings on the London Eye, except they weren't in a pod on the Eye, they were on a larger observation platform. They were watching the sun explode and waiting for the Earth to be incinerated. How morbid was that?

But the sun didn't explode in her dream; instead it was an undertaker's that exploded to save the world from a bunch of space zombies. What the hell was Charles Dickens doing there? This dream was just too weird.

Oh, there was her mum, Jackie. A tear rolled down Rose's cheek onto the pillow as she felt the emotion of loss and longing to see her mum again. But in the dream, her mum was upset with her for going off travelling without telling her. Rose knew it was a far fetched dream, because she would never do that to her mum. She loved her too much.

But that man was still there, in the background. She caught glimpses of him, but could never make out his features, just a cool leather jacket in front of a red telephone box. Did he work for BT, because he always seemed to be by a telephone box?

She then dreamed something that would have made her laugh if she hadn't felt so scared. Big green aliens zipped up in small human skins. Bigger on the inside? Why was that important? Wouldn't telephone boxes be cool if they had more room inside them?

And then she was saying goodbye to her mum and Mickey as she left to go backpacking around the world . . . No, around the universe! Wow, that would be really cool if she could do that, rather than working in Henricks for the rest of her life.

Where was she now? This large, domed room seemed so alien, and yet so welcoming and familiar. It felt like home, and she longed to be there again. What didn't occur to her because she was asleep was, if she longed to be there again, that implied that she had been there before.

The backpacking holiday involved a lot of running, meeting dangerous robots, interesting people, and nightmare creatures. And then, more tears rolled onto her pillow as she dreamt about meeting her father. She had never known him of course, he died when she was just a baby, but her mum always talked about him.

"I've had all these extra hours. No one else in the world has ever had that," her dad told her. "And on top of that, I got to see you. And you're beautiful. How lucky am I, eh? So, come on, do as your dad says. You remember him Sweetheart, because he's the most important man in your life now."

'Who is Dad?' she mumbled in her sleep. 'Who?'

"Hi Jack," Rose said in her dream as they stopped running from gas mask wearing zombies. "Whatcha doin' here in the tar pit?" That was the closest word her subconscious could get to the original.

Jack looked around the domed room. "Tar pit? Don't look like a tar pit," he told her. "Looks like a dance hall, and I'd ask you to dance, but I think this guy has first refusal."

In that disjointed way of dreams, Rose was suddenly dancing with the faceless man in the leather jacket, and it felt wonderful. He was a great mover, and it felt so sexy. Before she knew it, the backpacking holiday was over, and she was back home with her mum. She was crying in her mum's arms, because the faceless man had left her.

Rose awoke, and touched her wet cheeks. 'Blimey! What brought that on?' she asked herself. She went through to the kitchen and had a glass of water, before popping her head around the nursery door to check on her daughter. She went across the hallway to her room, and never noticed a brown paper parcel on the mat which had been posted through the letterbox.

She quickly fell asleep again, and this time there was another man taking her travelling, but it felt like the same man, only different. How weird are dreams? The leather jacket was gone, replaced by a tight suit and long coat. She still couldn't remember the face, but the hair was gorgeous and he was so foxy.

Now the weirdness was coming thick and fast. Cat nurses on a new Earth; werewolves; giant bats in a school where she met Sarah Jane. Hang on . . . did she really meet Sarah Jane in a school?

"What do I do? Do I stay with him?" Rose asked her in her dream.

"Yes!" Sarah Jane answered quickly. "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for. Find him Rose. You need him. We all need him."

"But how do I find him?"

"You found your way back to him once before, you can do it again."

Metal men were attacking her mum and dad in a mansion; faceless people sitting in front of the television. She got a flash of a cheeky smile when she thought of the faceless man that was a constant companion in her dream.

Her dream took on a darker turn, and she felt the foreboding of a nightmare. There was a demon, imprisoned at the dawn of time which tried to escape its prison. The metal men returned to do battle with the pepperpot robots, and that's when she parted company with her parents. No, wait. Her dad had died when she was a baby. How could he have been reunited with her mum? Dreams were just barmy.

There was Donna in a spider's web, and Martha on the moon with rhinoceros space men. Rose snorted a laugh in her sleep. Dreams were just silly. She saw Shakespeare and the witches from Macbeth, which was odd, because she'd never really paid any attention to Shakespeare at school, so why dream about it?

Everything started to blur together, new Earth again and pepper pot robots in New York, a man turning into a scorpion and a space ship falling into a star. And then, another flash of that cheeky smile, and she was hiding in a school. She was pretending to be the wife of a school master so that they could avoid being eaten.

She could feel this dream was leading her to something important. She groaned in her sleep as she licked and kissed a man's hands and face. This was more like it. These were the kind of dreams she wanted. Her lips remembered the shape and feel of the man's features. She had another flash of that cheeky smile, and realised that it was the smile of the man she was kissing.

He was kneeling in front of her now, holding out a fabulous diamond ring. "Rose . . . will you marry me . . . now, today, in that church over there?"

"I SO want this! Doctor, yes, I'll marry you!" Doctor? He was a doctor she realised in her dream, but Doctor who?

"Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," the female vicar said as she stood at the altar with this vaguely familiar man in front of her. "The groom will now exchange that which no other may know."

The groom leaned towards her, and she heard a melodic sound in her ear. She woke up and realised that it was the warbling of the alarm on her phone, telling her it was time to wake up. Damn! What was he about to say to her? She knew it was only a dream, but somehow it left her with the feeling that it was something vitally important.

She climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom to empty her bladder. What a night! She didn't feel at all refreshed from her night's sleep and unusual dreams. She would have to get Andrea up soon and get ready to take her to the child minder before going to work.

She sometimes wondered if it was worth working with the cost of childcare taking a big wedge out of her wages. But her mum had brought her up to believe that you had to make your own way in the world and not rely on any one else to bail you out. After getting dressed, she went to the nursery and started what she believed was her daily morning routine with Andrea.

With her daughter in the pushchair, and the baby bag over her shoulder, she headed for the door, which is when she spotted the parcel on the mat.

'Hello?' she said to Andrea. 'What's this?'

She picked it up and looked at package. It seemed to be a book, wrapped in brown paper and "ROSE" written on the front. It had been delivered by hand, and she presumed it was one of her neighbours sending a book for Andrea, as they often passed on toys and books for her.

Rose tore off the paper and saw that it was a blue book with embossed panels on it. She had a flashback to her dream and the red phone box, except that it wasn't red, it was blue, and it wasn't a phone box, it was a police call box from the 1960's.

'Oh my God!' she exclaimed. 'I know this.' She had a flashback to a huge library, and a woman in a space suit. "Hello sweetie," the woman had said.

All thoughts of going to work left her head as she quickly leafed through the worn pages of the book, but it was empty.

"Where are we up to? Have we done the Bone Meadows?" the woman asked the man as she leafed through this very book. She remembered feeling annoyed that this woman seemed to be flirting with her husband.

'My husband!' Rose gasped. The man in her dreams, the man in front of the phone box whose face she couldn't remember, was her husband!

"What's the book?" Amy Pond had asked her.

"Stay away from it," the Doctor had warned her. "It's her diary."

"Our diary,' River had answered.

Tears rolled down Rose's cheeks as she remembered River Song and more importantly, her husband, the Doctor. His life had been recorded in this book, and would be again. Maybe in the wrong order from her perspective, but it would be recorded.

She let out a sob of utter joy as she felt and then heard the sound of time and space being stroked and teased out of shape to allow her love to return to her. She looked down at Andrea who was clapping her hands excitedly and saying, "dadadada".

Rose cried, and wiped her cheeks with her hands. She took one last look down the hallway to the living room, and realised that once she stepped outside, it would revert back to the abandoned flat of her past.

'C'mon Sweetheart, let's go and find Daddy.'

She left the flat and ran along the walkway to the lifts, where she waited impatiently for the doors to open. The descent seemed to take forever, and she had a better idea than most humans of how long that was.

The metal doors creaked open at the ground floor and she pushed her way through them, heading for the security door at the rear entrance to Bucknall House. She ran with the pushchair, across the courtyard towards the Post Office and the graffitied wall opposite, which was the usual parking spot for . . . the TARDIS.

Andrea was giggling at travelling so fast in her pushchair, it was like being on a rollercoaster ride and she loved it.

It was real! All of it. Her husband, the travelling through time and space, her home. It was all real. As she approached the familiar blue box, the door opened, and the most beautiful sight in all the universe stepped out in his white Converse, sexy, tight pinstripe suit, and his long brown coat.

He gave her the cheeky grin that she had seen in her dreams and she burst into tears again. She jumped into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck. He hugged her around the waist and swung her around.

'I was going to ask you if you missed me,' he laughed. 'But I think I just got the answer.'

She grabbed his face, planted her lips firmly on his, and snogged him to within an inch of his many lives.

'Nice greeting,' a woman said behind them. 'Well, you always prefer greetings to goodbyes, don't you?'

They turned around to see River Song walking towards them.

'You tell me,' the Doctor said.

'Spoilers,' River replied.

Rose took River's diary out of the back of the pushchair. 'I did look inside, but the pages were blank.'

'Thank you,' River said, accepting the book with a smile.

Rose pulled her into a hug, all animosity forgotten towards the woman who helped her get her husband back. 'No. Thank you for helpin' me get him back.'

'You're welcome,' River replied, rubbing Rose's back.

'The writing should all back now,' the Doctor told her, returning her vortex manipulator.

'Thank you.'

'Are you married, River?' the Doctor asked her out of the blue, hoping that she would explain how she knew his name when they met her in The Library.

But she was used to spoilers, and knew how dangerous knowledge of the future could be. He'd told her often enough. She deflected his question with one of her own. 'Are you asking?'

'Yes,' he said

'What?' Rose asked in confusion.

'Yes,' River replied.

'What?' Rose asked again.

The Doctor was equally confused. 'No, hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me, or, or, or asking if you were married?'

'Yes,' River said again with a cheeky smile. Rose started to giggle.

'No, but was that yes . . . or yes?' the Doctor asked.

'Yes,' River said again helpfully. Rose was now doubled up with laughter.

'River, who are you?' he asked finally.

River put the vortex manipulator on her wrist. 'You're going to find out very soon now. And I'm sorry, but that's when everything changes,' she said, and vanished.

'What the hell was all that about?' Rose asked him.

'Absolutely no idea.' He crouched down and lifted Andrea out of her pushchair, who wrapped her arms around his neck. 'Hello Sweetheart. I missed you too.'

He pushed open the door for Rose to go in, and took a last look around the Powell Estate before going inside.


	13. Death of the Doctor

**Chapter 18**

 **Death of the Doctor  
**

Andrea tottered across the floor plates of the console room towards her father.

'Hello Sweetheart,' the Doctor said, crouching down and holding his arms out for her.

'Dadadadada,' she giggled as she reached him and was scooped up into a hug.

'We're gonna have to put everythin' on the next shelf up now,' Rose said with a grin. 'I just managed that packet of chocolate digestives you opened last night. And, she's given this a good gummin' I'm afraid.' She held up his sonic screwdriver, which was dripping with drool.

'Yeuk!' he said, taking the offending article with his finger and thumb tip and placing it on the console. He suddenly looked horrified. 'I've just had a thought. What about when she can reach the controls on the console?'

Rose laughed. 'You'll have to cobble together one of your gizmos out of a fire guard and a playpen.'

'Oh yeah. Good idea.' He tickled Andrea's tummy. 'Your mummy's brilliant she is . . . Yes she is.'

'Watcha been lookin' at?' Rose asked him as she looked at the monitor.

'Oh that. It's the Wasteland of the Crimson Heart, a mighty old battlefield. I picked up a message from the Shansheeth about it.' He displayed the message on the monitor.

'We the Shansheeth regretfully announce the death of the Time Lord know as the Doctor, in the Wasteland of the Crimson Heart,' Rose read. 'Who are these Shansheeth then?'

'They're sort of galactic undertakers, travelling through space to repatriate fallen heroes to their kin. They're grouped into "tribes" and are led by the Wide Wing of the High Shansheeth Nest. Do you remember Sam, the American Bald Eagle on the Muppets?'

Rose looked a bit puzzled at the sudden change of direction in the conversation, but was used to it. 'Yeah,' she said cautiously.

'Well, if you imagine him wearing robes, then you've got a good idea of what they look like.'

She snorted a laugh. 'You're kiddin'.'

'Nope. They bear a strong resemblance to a vulture, but are harmless enough and provide a good service to grieving relatives.'

'So, we gonna have a look then?'

'What? A mighty old battle field with a mystery which is just begging to be explored . . . What do you think?'

'I think I'd better get Andrea in the pushchair and get the baby bag ready.'

The Doctor gave her a big grin and used Andrea's hand to pull down the materialise/dematerialise lever.

'It's very red,' Rose commented as she stepped out of the TARDIS behind her husband. She looked out over a desert plain with wrecked space ships strewn across it, some of which had palls of smoke rising into the amber sky. There was the crescent of a large planet hanging in the sky, with two moons in attendance.

'A red giant star. This system is very old,' he told her.

'What happened here?' she asked as she looked around the debris field.

'A space battle probably. Crippled ships caught in this moons gravity and pulled down to the ground.'

Rose was halfway through her rotation of looking at the wreckage when she stopped suddenly, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

'Doctor . . . where's the TARDIS?'

The Doctor turned the hover pushchair to face her. 'Eh?'

'The TARDIS. It was right there, and now it's gone.'

He squinted through the smoke. 'You're right. It's gone.'

'Yes, I know,' she said, starting to panic. 'What I want to know is where it's gone to.'

He reached inside his jacket. 'I'll just do a scan . . . Ah.' He then realised that his sonic screwdriver was on the console, covered in drool.

Rose gave him a stern look. 'Don't tell me that because yer afraid of a bit of baby spit, we are marooned on a deserted battlefield.'

'Okay,' he said sheepishly.

'Okay what?' Rose asked in confusion.

'Okay I won't tell you that because I'm afraid of a bit of baby spit, we are marooned on a deserted battlefield.'

'Ooh, you, you.' He flinched at each of the "you's".

'Sorry,' he said quietly, which deflected some of her anger and frustration.

She realised that it wasn't his fault the TARDIS had been stolen. Someone had lured him here with that message. She took the pushchair off him. 'You . . . are going to do somethin' brilliant to get the TARDIS back. And you'd better do it before we run out of supplies in the baby bag.'

'Ah. Right. Yes. I'm all over it.' He ran into a section of hull, and Rose could hear bits of equipment being thrown about. Occasionally, some of the pieces made it outside.

After a few hours of tinkering, he had managed to cobble together a gizmo which was a metre tall cylindrical column.

'So what's it do then?' Rose asked him.

'I'm hoping it will transport us to a source of Artron energy, namely, the TARDIS. But without the sonic . . .'

Rose gave him a "look".

'Okay. Sore point. Let's fire it up and see what we get.'

He powered up the device and made some adjustments. Andrea started clapping her hands, saying, 'sahsahsahsah.'

Rose frowned. 'Can you hear voices?'

He made another adjustment and they could hear voices distorted by a phase shift.

['Rani? Clyde?'] they heard a woman call out.

'Is that Sarah Jane?' Rose asked.

The Doctor frowned. 'It sounded like her.'

['Where is everyone?'] another woman asked.

'That wasn't her,' Rose noticed.

'No, it wasn't,' the Doctor said. He'd recognised the voice.

['I think there's something wrong,'] Sarah Jane said.

['Wrong? As in you mean just like the old days sort of wrong?']

['Exactly like the old days,'] Sarah Jane confirmed.

'The old days?' Rose asked.

['Groovy.']

['Yes,'] Sarah Jane said.

'Blimey. "Groovy" is old days. I've not heard that since the sixties.'

['We've got to get out of here, okay?'] they heard Clyde say, and the gizmo sparked with Artron energy.

'Ah. Clyde. He's still got Artron energy from when he touched the TARDIS!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'If I can tune in to that . . .'

['There you are,'] Sarah Jane said.

The Doctor spoke into the gizmo. 'Sarah Jane, it's the Shansheeth. They're lying through their beaks. They want you and Jo. This whole thing's a trap.'

['I knew it,'] Sarah Jane replied.

'Who's Jo?' Rose asked.

'Remember when I told you I'd met the Nestene and Autons before, in my third body? And Jo Grant at UNIT helped me?'

'Oh, her. Am I goin' to meet her?' Rose asked excitedly.

['Hold on. If they're lying, that means the Doctor's still alive. Yes!']

'Of course I'm still alive, Jo. I thought that was obvious. Catch up,' he told her.

'Rude Doctor,' Rose said.

['I beg your pardon?'] Jo said.

['Clyde, is that you?'] Sarah Jane asked.

'Course it's not. It's me. I'm using Clyde as a receiver. I've keyed into his residual Artron energy so I can organise a very complicated biological swap across ten thousand light years. Hold on.' The Doctor sends a boost of Artron energy through the gizmo.

['That wasn't me. That wasn't me speaking. I'm getting. That's not my hand, because my hand's not white,'] they heard Clyde say.

Rose watched as the Doctor was enveloped in Artron energy, before being replaced with Clyde. She reached forward and held his shoulders to steady him.

['Sorry, Clyde, but this space is taken,'] the Doctor said.

The Doctor looked around the corridor he was now standing in. 'Good. So, blimey. That was different. Hello, you lot.'

'Doctor? But . . .Where's Clyde?'

'Come on, Rani, use your brain. Clyde and I swapped places. I'm where he was, he's where I was. Which means, right now, he's with Rose. Ooh, I'm in a lot of trouble.'

['Doctor? Doctor!'] they heard Clyde and Rose call out.

'Hello, Sarah Jane.'

'Hello Doctor.'

'What Doctor? The Doctor? My Doctor?' Jo asked.

'Yeah, well, he can change his face,' Sarah Jane said.

'I know, but into a foxy hunk in tight suit?'

'Down girl. Imagine it from my point of view. Last time I saw you, Jo Grant, you were, what, twenty on, twenty two? It's like someone baked you. Everyone. Meanwhile.'

The vultures approached. 'Ah, yes. The Claw Shansheeth of the 15th Funeral Fleet. I've been looking for you. Have you been telling people I'm dead?'

'I apologise. The death notice was released a little too soon. Though I can rectify this, immediately.' The Doctor was transfixed by red energy from the lead Shansheeth's claw. 'I'm so sorry for your loss, Doctor. Rest in peace.'

* * *

Rose watched as the Doctor was enveloped in Artron energy, before being replaced with Clyde. She reached forward and held his shoulders to steady him.

['Sorry, Clyde, but this space is taken. Good. So, blimey. That was different. Hello, you lot,'] she heard her husband say.

'Doctor?' she called in to the gizmo.

'Doctor!' Clyde called out.

'Hello Clyde. Are you all right?'

'Oh, hello Rose. Where am I? Where's the Doctor?'

'I was wonderin' that myself,' she said and then tilted her head to listen to the gizmo. 'Can you hear countin'?'

'Sounds like a countdown,' Clyde said, and promptly turned into the Doctor.

'Oh, yer back. Thank God.'

He kissed her on the lips. 'Yep. But I've got to go again to sort out the Shansheeth. I'll be back soon.'

He shook the gizmo. 'Come on, come on.'

Back on Earth, Sarah Jane was leading her small band down a corridor. 'Faster,' she encouraged as she ushered them through a doorway.

'Come along, Smith,' the Doctor said instead of Clyde.

 **'** In, in, in,' the Doctor said as everyone ran into the dormitory.

A female UNIT colonel approached as the Doctor entered the room. 'I'm sorry, is there a problem?' she asked.

The Doctor's face appeared in the gap in the door. 'Sorry, I was slamming it.' The door slammed in the colonel's face.

'Right. Now we need to lock it. Come on, use the sonic lipstick.'

'Haven't you got the screwdriver?' Sarah Jane asked.

'They took it,' he said sheepishly.

'They do sonic lipsticks now?' Jo asked enthusiastically, with the intention of ordering one off ebay as soon as she got home.

'We're running out of time,' the Doctor told them. 'I need you, Sarah, and you, Jo.'

Jo looked puzzled. 'Need us for what?'

The Doctor took one of their hands in each of his. 'Remember the old days when we'd go zooming off to faraway worlds?'

Before either of them could answer, they were looking at a rocky cliff under a red sky. The teleport gizmo was making a whining noise.

'No, no, no, no. Let's get you working properly. Stop.'

'Will you stop doin' that,' Rose chastised. 'Or if you do it again, you take us with ya.'

'Where are we?' Sarah Jane asked, still looking at the cliff face.

'The Wasteland of the Crimson Heart,' he said. He turned around and pointed. 'Planet Earth's that way. Bit of a long walk.'

The ladies turned around and gasped at the sight of the planets in the sky. 'Wow,' Jo breathed.

'Sonic, please,' the Doctor said to Sarah Jane.

'Hiya,' Rose said to Sarah Jane, pulling her into a hug.

'Hello Rose,' Sarah Jane said and crouched down to look at Andrea in the hover pushchair. 'Oh my word, hasn't she grown.'

Jo was still gazing over the alien landscape. 'It's so many years since I was on another planet.'

'Me too,' Sarah Jane agreed.

'You must be Jo,' Rose said holding out her hand. 'I'm Rose. He's told me a lot about you.'

'Are you his latest companion?' Jo asked, and both Rose and Sarah Jane laughed.

'You could say that,' Rose said, holding up her left hand to show her ring. 'But I think I'm a bit more than that these days.'

'What!?' Jo exclaimed. 'You mean he married you?'

Rose grinned. 'Yep. And we have a daughter.'

'Oh-my-God. You are amazing.' Jo pulled her into a hug as Sarah Jane went to help the Doctor.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane were working on the gizmo as Rose and Jo joined them.

'There, and there,' the Doctor directed her.

'Anythin' we can do?' Rose asked.

The Doctor smiled at her. 'That one there,' he said, and Rose made the connection.

'So how did you end up in this place?' Sarah Jane asked.

'The Shansheeth lured me. A mighty old battlefield, just begging to be explored. Then they nicked the TARDIS. Fortunately, I had all this wreckage to build a space swapping doo-dah thingummy wotsit.

'So, you've got a wife and child in the TARDIS now,' Jo said.

'Yeah. Who'd have thought it, eh?' he said with a grin.

'I only left you because I got married. Did you think I was stupid?' Jo asked him.

He frowned at her. 'Why do you say that?'

'I was a bit dumb. Still am, I suppose,' she said.

'Now what in the world would make you think that, ever, ever, ever?'

Rose had been eavesdropping. 'He doesn't travel with people who are dumb. There was this one boy, Adam . . . er, long story. But he soon dropped him off. He only takes the best.'

Jo smiled at her kindness. 'We'd been travelling down the Amazon for months, and we reached a village in Cristalino, and it was the only place in thousands of miles that had a telephone, so I called you. I just wanted to say hello. And they told me that you'd left, left UNIT, never came back. So I waited and waited, because you said you'd see me again. You did, I asked you and you said yes. You promised. So I thought, one day, I'd hear that sound, Deep in the jungle, I'd hear that funny wheezing noise, and a big blue box right in the middle of the rainforest. You see, he wouldn't just leave. Not forever. Not me. I've waited my whole silly life.'

'But you're an idiot,' he told her.

'Well, there we have it,' Jo said.

Rose slapped his arm. 'Rude, Doctor.'

'No, but don't you see? How could I ever find you? You've spent the past forty years living in huts, climbing up trees, tearing down barricades. You've done everything from flying kites on Kilimanjaro to sailing down the Yangtze in a tea chest. Not even the TARDIS could pin you down.'

'Hold on. I did sail down the Yangtze in a tea chest. How did you know?'

'And that family. All seven kids, twelve grandchildren, thirteenth on his way. He's dyslexic but that'll be fine . . . Great swimmer.'

'So you've been watching me all this time?'

'No. Because you're right, I don't look back. I can't,' he said sadly, almost painfully.

'But I can,' Rose said. 'Until I met Sarah Jane at a high school full of aliens, I never even knew I was the latest in a long line of travellin' companions.'

'Oh, I remember that,' Sarah Jane said. 'You had a bit of a tiff outside the café.'

'A tiff?' the Doctor said.

'Yeah. And that's puttin' it mildly,' Rose told them. 'But after that, he seemed to realise that I needed to know about his past, so he started tellin' me bedtime stories about his adventures, and I loved it.'

'And he told you about us?' Jo asked hopefully.

Rose snorted a laugh. 'Yer jokin'. The problem was he never forgot any of ya. And remembering you is painful for him. So when he mentioned you in an adventure, I'd look you up and tell him what I'd found.'

'And I was so proud,' he said.

'It really is you, isn't it?' Jo asked with a smile.

'Hello.'

Sarah Jane reluctantly interrupted. 'Sorry, but we've got that lot back at home with the Shansheeth.'

'Yes, yes. And I still need you, Jo. Now, that bag of yours, I can smell blackcurrant. Is it buchu oil?'

'Hand-picked in Mozambique,' she said proudly.

'Oh, perfect. These circuits need connectivity. Wonderful. Little tiddly drop. That's it. What a team. There. That should work. Intergalactic molecular streaming, with just a hint of blackcurrant.'

'But what'll happen to Clyde?' Sarah Jane asked.

'No, no, no, I've fixed it. All I needed was you two. Oil and sonic. Now we can go back and Clyde can stay where he is.' He put his hand over Rose's on the handle of the hover pushchair, and Rose took Sarah Jane's and Jo's hands and put them onto the handle. 'Hold tight.'

['Get us out of here. Doctor!'] they heard Clyde call as they materialised back in the dormitory.

'Then again, maybe leaving Clyde in the same place wasn't such a good idea,' the Doctor said, examining the air vent grill.

'Look out, stand back,' Sarah Jane said, taking out her sonic lipstick and sonicking the grill.

'I have GOT to get me one of those,' Rose said.

The Doctor pulled off the grill and looked inside. 'Ah! Ventilation shafts. That takes me back. Or even forwards.'

'Hurry up. We're getting boiled alive,' he heard Clyde call from deep in the ventilation system.

'Hold on. We're coming,' the Doctor called back as he hurried along the shaft on his hands and knees.

Jo called to her grandson. 'Don't worry, Santiago, I'm here. You go first, you've got the sonic lipstick,' she said to Sarah Jane. As she turned to look, she saw Sarah Jane and Rose being held by a Shansheeth. A third one grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. Andrea let out a niggling cry that she usually did when she was upset at something.

['Doctor, it's a trap,'] Rose thought in his head. ['The Shansheeth have grabbed us.']

Sarah Jane managed to free her mouth from the clawed hand and shout. 'DOCTOR!'

['Rose?'] 'Jo? Sarah?' he called back along the shaft.

'They're roasting us,' Rani called out from ahead.

The Doctor looked ahead and looked behind. It was one of those impossible situations again. 'Rose?' What should he do? 'Argh!' he called in frustration.

['Save the children,'] Rose told him. ['I'll take care of the Shansheeth.']

He smiled at his wife's resolve. ['I love you! Stay safe.']

Rose, Sarah Jane and Jo had their hands cuffed behind them, and with Andrea in the push chair were taken to the chapel.

'I didn't trust you, Colonel, from the moment I met you,' Sarah Jane told Karim.

'Like I care,' the colonel said with derision. 'Frankly, I've never met anyone so staggeringly pious in all my life. Now then . . .' She activated a control on the lectern and massive bolts secured the door. 'The chamber's sealed off. The Doctor would need half a ton of dynamite to get through that.

Jo spotted a familiar blue box in an alcove. 'The TARDIS. I never thought I'd see it again.'

'That's what this is all about. The TARDIS, and you,' Karim said. 'Place them in the Memory Weave,' she commanded, and Rose, Jo and Sarah were strapped to some upright couches.

In the ventilation shaft, the Doctor was hot wiring a control panel. 'And release.'

'Blimey. It really is you? I couldn't see you before, I was too busy swapping,' Clyde said.

'Oi, we're still cooking back here,' Rani complained.

'Where's my gran?' a blonde, curly haired youth asked.

The Doctor deduced that that he was Santiago. 'Right, yes, sorry, she's in danger, so, we'd better er . . .' He realised that he was too big for the shaft he was in. 'Can't turn round.'

'You'll have to shuffle backwards,' Clyde said in an "isn't it obvious" tone of voice.

'Oh, yeah, okay. Thank you, Clyde.' He started shuffling backwards and the rest of the troupe followed him.

['We've got a problem Love. They've strapped us to these couches and are going to suck our memories out of our heads,'] Rose thought to him.

['What do they want your memories for?']

['A key to the TARDIS. This Memory Weave thing can produce one from our memories.']

['But you've already got a key.']

['Der. And if they find it, we're done for.']

['Ah, right. You'd better clear out your mind.']

['I'm tryin', but I'm not as good at it as you.']

['No. I mean you'd better clear out your mind and come into mine. Remember the shuttle on Midnight?']

['Oh yeah. Okay, open the door 'cos here I come.']

The Doctor and his team climbed out of the ventilation shaft, and he noticed that he had acquired another member in the form of a small blue Groske. They could hear the hum of the Memory Weave starting up.

'They've started,' he announced, and hurried along the corridor towards the Chapel.

'They've sealed it off. Jo, Sarah, can you hear me?' he called through the doors. 'Try to find a way in.'

His young team examined the door and the walls. 'There's nothing. We need a bulldozer,' Santiago said.

The Doctor leaned against the doors. 'I've got the original here. You can have it if you let them go.' If he could get them to open the doors, he could act against the Shansheeth.

Clyde tried hitting the steel doors with a fire extinguisher, which just bounced off. 'It's not shifting. What do we do, Doctor? What do we do?'

The Doctor had his head under a control panel when an idea came to him. 'Because the Shansheeth are making them remember.'

'I know!' Clyde exclaimed in frustration.

'Then don't you see?' the Doctor said with a smile.

'I don't see anything,' Clyde told him.

The Doctor stood up and activated the control panel. 'We do the same. Opening comms . . . Sarah, Jo, can you hear me? Listen to me, both of you. I want you to remember.'

'We are doing. That's the trouble,' Jo told him.

'No, no, no, no. I want you to remember everything. Every single day with me. Every single second.'

'What's he doing?' Karim asked.

'Because your memories are more powerful than anything else on this planet. Just think of it. Remember it. But properly. Properly. Give the Memory Weave everything. Every planet, every face, every madman, every loss, every sunset, every scent, every terror, every joy, every Doctor. Every me.'

'I remember,' Sarah Jane said with joy.

['Rose my love. Much as I've enjoyed having you in here with me, I need you back in your head remembering everything we've experienced together.']

['I am gonna blow their socks off. Just you watch.']

['That's my girl.']

['Do Shansheeth wear socks?'] she thought to him with a grin as she left his mind.

'NO!' they heard Karim shout through the doors.

['Memory Weave overloading.'] the computer announced.

'I remember,' Jo said.

'We need that key. What is happening?' Karim asked. 'What's happening?'

['Initial target lost,'] the computer said.

'The device is overloading. Too many memories. Too many,' the Shansheeth told them.

'Reverse it. Bring that key back,' Karim ordered in desperation.

'Come on, all of you. Tell them, tell them,' the Doctor instructed his team.

'Think of us, Sarah Jane. Remember Maria and her dad, and all the stuff we did, like the Gorgon,' Clyde called through the door.

Rani joined him. 'And the clowns, and the zodiac. And the Mona Lisa.'

'All of it. All of it,' Sarah Jane said.

The Doctor picked up thoughts from Rose of their exploits in the bedroom. 'Maybe not that Rose,' he called out. 'That might cause the planet to implode,' he said quietly to himself.

'Just think, Gran. All the countries you've been to,' Santiago said.

'Every country in the world,' Jo agreed.

['Weave starting to self-destruct,'] the computer warned.

Rose managed to pull a wrist free, and was able to free herself from the couch. She looked to her right and saw Sarah Jane freeing herself.

'It's blown a circuit,' Sarah Jane realised.

'I can't get out,' Jo said in alarm.

'We've got you,' Rose said as they went to her aid.

'Now we're in trouble,' the Doctor said. 'The Weave's going to blow up and we can't get them out.'

'What?' Rani said with concern.

'Can't escape,' he confirmed.

'I need the key,' the Shansheeth said.

['Weave now entering detonation phase,'] the computer told them.

Things were going bang and starting fires as Karim tried to force the doors open. 'I can't unseal the doors. The power line is gone. Argh!'

Sarah Jane tried to use her sonic lipstick on the door. 'We've drained it. Doctor? Doctor, I can't get out.'

'I can't open it,' the Doctor told her.

'No sonic screwdriver?' she asked.

'It's inside the TARDIS.'

'And we can't get in, because guess what? We stopped ourselves getting the key. Oh, that was clever,' Sarah Jane said.

'I just want to say, I'm so glad I saw you again,' Jo said through the door. 'I waited all this time, and it was worth it. Every second. Funny thing is though; your funeral turns out to be ours instead.'

'Y'reckon?' Rose said with a grin, holding up her key. ['We'll be safe in the TARDIS, yeah?'] Rose asked in his head.

['Oh you beauty!'] he thought back with a grin of his own. ['Safe has houses. Now move it.'] He turned to the Groske. 'How much time have they got?'

'Big bang, ten seconds.'

'Come on,' he told the group, and ran down the corridor.

The Groske started a countdown. 'Ten . . Nine . . .'

['Total destruction imminent,'] the computer told them, and the Shansheeth hammered on the TARDIS door.

'We can't let them in,' Jo said sadly. 'They'll take the TARDIS.'

The Doctor and the children took cover around the corner.

'Seven . . . six . . .'

'HURRY UP GRAN!' Santiago shouted down the corridor.

'Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .'

KaBOOM! There was an explosion, and the fireball blew the doors off.

With the crisis over, the Doctor realised what Rani had shouted through the doors. 'What do you mean, the Mona Lisa?'

'Smells like roast chicken,' the Groske said as they entered the charred Chapel.

The Doctor stepped through the rubble and put his key in the TARDIS lock. He pushed the door open and was grabbed by the lapels and pulled into kiss.

'Mmmm. Hold that thought wife and we'll continue this later,' he said with a cheeky smile and a waggle of his eyebrows.

He led the way up the ramp to the console, and when everyone was on board, he started the Time Rotor. After a short trip, he shut down the console and held his arm out for his young passengers to have a look outside.

'Whoa. It's Bannerman Road. It's like everything moved. I'm never getting used to that,' Clyde said as he looked around the attic.

'Mister Smith, you're in big trouble. Those Shansheeth were bad,' Rani told the computer.

['It transpires that you encountered a rogue element, and the Wide Wing of the High Shansheeth Nest sends apologies.']

Santiago looked on in wide eyed wonder. 'No way. On top of everything else, you've got a talking computer? That is it. I'm giving up.'

'Still the same old TARDIS,' Jo said as she looked around the new console room. (Well, new to her.) 'It doesn't matter what's changed, it still smells the same. No. I've got to say goodbye, or else I'd stay with you forever. Besides, I probably couldn't keep up any more. Get you into trouble with the Time Lords.'

"Ooh, elephant in the room," Rose thought to herself.

'Hmm. Yeah, I'd probably better go. You know me, stuff to do,' the Doctor said.

Rose gave a laugh. 'I'm not sure what he was like when you travelled with him, but he ain't big on goodbyes.'

Sarah Jane and Jo thought back to their time with him, looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

'He'd blow things up,' Jo remembered.

'Or break things to stop them working,' Sarah Jane added.

'And then go,' Rose finished for them. 'Leaving someone else to clear up the mess.'

The Doctor gave them an exasperated look. 'Oi. You never see Superman or Spiderman with a broom, having to sweep up after themselves.'

Sarah Jane finished laughing. 'It's daft, though, because we were both saying, we had this theory that if you ever died, we'd feel it, somehow we'd just know. But that's just silly, isn't it?'

He thought about that. 'I don't know. Maybe not. Because between you and me, if that day ever comes . . . I think the whole universe might just shiver.'

He was quiet for a few seconds, just looking at them, and then he gave a start, making them jump. They all laughed and hugged, knowing that this was goodbye.

'It's been lovely to meet you,' Jo said to Rose and looked over to the Doctor. 'You've been quite an influence on him.'

Rose looked over to her husband and gave him a wink. 'It's been great to meet you too. I can finally put a face to the name in all those stories.'

Sarah Jane hugged Rose. 'Nice to see you again, Rose.' She stooped down and held her arms out for Andrea, who was toddling around the console. 'And you little lady, get bigger every time I see you. How old is she now?'

'Twelve months in TARDIS time,' Rose told her.

'Hah! It was six weeks only a couple of months ago,' Sarah Jane realised. 'You and mummy look after your daddy, won't you?'

'We will,' Rose said, wrapping her arm around the Doctor's waist. He instinctively put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

Sarah Jane and Jo gave Andrea a kiss on the cheek before she put her down on the floor grating again. 'We know you don't like to say goodbye, so until next time.' They walked down the ramp to the doors and turned to take on last look, before waving and stepping outside.


	14. The Impossible Astronaut

**Chapter 19**

 **The Impossible Astronaut**

Andrea Bouchez walked along the rue Bichat in Paris towards a little cafe where she was going to meet a friend. She loved Paris, and had done so since she had been taken there as a child. She also loved a certain history teacher called Pierre, whom she had met when she had returned as a young woman.

They had hit it off from the moment he asked her to dance, and he loved the way she teased him about the recorded account of the French Revolution, pretending that she had been there and that the recorded events were incorrect. She didn't tell him that she had written the original eyewitness account as a joke to see if her father would notice.

'Andrea!' a young man with dishevelled, ginger hair called to her from a table outside the cafe.

She waved and called back. 'Vincent.' She noticed he had two other people with him. An unusually short man in a suit, and a woman with curly blonde hair and expensive clothes.

Vincent kissed her on each cheek, and introduced her to his friends. 'Andrea Bouchez, may I introduce Fleuve Chanson. She has been posing for me.'

Andrea shook her hand. 'Not in the nude I hope.'

'Fleuve gave her a cheeky smile. 'He hasn't asked me . . . yet. No, I've been sitting in the grass whilst he immortalises me in oils.'

The short man in the suit stood, and Vincent introduced him. 'And, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.'

The short man took her hand and kissed it gallantly. 'Pleased to meet you Madame. Vincent did not tell me of your beauty. I am truly blessed to be in the presence of two such beautiful women.'

'Down boy,' Vincent said with a grin.

'A pleasure to meet such a gallant gentleman,' Andrea said. 'Paris is buzzing with gossip about you Mr. Toulouse-Lautrec.'

'All good I hope, and please, call me Henri.'

They all sat down and ordered coffee and croissants, and chatted about their lives.

'Fleuve Chanson?' Andrea questioned. 'That translates into English as River Song.'

'Yes it does,' Fleuve agreed.

'My parents knew a River Song, a long time ago now. In fact, your face looks vaguely familiar.'

'You were just a baby in a push chair when I last saw you. You have your father's memory,' River told her.

Vincent and Henri frowned. 'But Fleuve, surely you are mistaken, You cannot be old enough to have known Andrea as a baby,' Vincent told her.

'I moisturise,' River said with a smile, and Andrea snorted a laugh.

And then, Andrea and River heard the sound of time and space being twisted in an act of transdimensional origami. River noticed that Andrea had a sad expression on her face, and suspected that bad news was coming her way.

Andrea stood and looked at her companions. 'I am sorry to cut this enjoyable meeting short, but I have some family business to attend to.'

'Of course Madame,' Henri said as he politely stood and nodded his head in a bow.

'Nothing serious I hope,' Vincent said, as he stood and kissed her hand.

'Just an ailing relative that needs some tender loving care.'

* * *

'That's something you don't see every day,' the tall dark stranger said as he sat down at the bar. He had short, dark hair, sticky out ears, a charming smile, and grey eyes that were full of mirth.

River gave him her best innocent smile. 'I'm sorry?'

'A whole body talking to a cyborg,' the man said.

'Well, everything on Sto has changed now,' River said. 'Cyborgs have equal rights. They have the vote, they can even get married.'

'Yeah, I know. I lobbied the Sto government to bring in the equal opportunities act, but not everyone is as liberal in their views as you.'

'Thank you. I like to think I'm an equal opportunities kind of girl.'

'Got an eye for an opportunity, I'll bet. Like that artefact in your bag.'

River took a lipstick out of her purse and freshened up her lips. 'What artefact would that be?'

The man reached inside his black leather jacket, took out a wallet, and showed her his warrant card. 'Ulysses Longbarrowmas, Superintendent of law enforcement at the Shadow Proclamation.'

'What a great name for a police officer. I know a nice couple with the name Lungbarrowmas.'

'Yeah, right,' Uly scoffed.

'The Doctor and Rose.'

Uly's mouth broke into a grin. 'You have GOT to be River Song.'

'Oh, heard of me have you?'

'Warned about you more like.'

'Ha! Yep, that's them,' River laughed. 'I bet they're proud of you though. Throwing out the Judoon mercenaries and recruiting a multi cultural, multi species police force.'

'Well, it's what Dad would have done in my shoes.'

'And what would he do if he found an archaeologist in a bar, making a deal with a cyborg for a stolen artefact?'

'HE would probably ask why a professor of archaeology would risk her professional reputation to acquire a stolen artefact. But me, I'm a copper, and I would arrest said professor for dealing in stolen goods, and ask for details of her supplier.'

'Ah!' River said. She would have to use the hallucinogenic lipstick after all. She needed to get the stolen artefact back into the correct time line to prevent a catastrophe.

'However, I'm on leave at the moment, visiting the in-laws with my wife, Kayleigh. So I'm off duty, or as off duty as a copper can be.'

'So what are you going to do?'

'What Dad would do. If someone is willing to put their career on the line for a stolen artefact, then there is more to that artefact than it's monetary value. He'd trust that person to the right thing, and not necessarily the legal thing.'

'Thank you. You're father would be proud.'

'I know he is. and Mum,' he said. 'Look after yourself River, and try and stay out of trouble.' He stood up and left the bar, and River heard the wheezing, grinding sound of the TARDIS.

* * *

The two science officers of the away team made their way through the jungle, towards the shuttle which was waiting to take them back to the Galaxy class star ship in orbit.

'Ooh, this is what I love about this job,' Peter Lungbarrowmas told his Crespallion wife, Trillien. 'Brand new species of proto-human showing early signs of civilised behaviour.'

'Early signs yeah,' his blue skinned wife said with concern. 'But not there yet.'

'I know,' he said with an excited smile, running his fingers through his sticky up hair. 'But think about it. Being able to study how a species moves from wild, feral behaviour, to developing language and cooperation.'

Trillien could hear the alien apes moving through the jungle around them. Somehow, she didn't think that they had developed a civilisation in the last five minutes, and doubted that they were going to invite them for a sit down and a chat.

'Does the data on your scanner tell you if they're vegetarians?'

'Well, like any successful species, they're omnivorous opportunists.'

'And if I'm not mistaken, we would be a very nice feeding opportunity.'

Peter stopped and frowned as he looked around the forest, seeing the silver furred apes moving around them through the trees.

'Ah!' he said as he tugged his ear. 'Good point . . . D'you know what my mum and dad would do in a situation like this?'

'No,' Trillien said.

He grabbed her hand and gave her a manic grin. 'Run!'

They ran along the narrow trail, the undergrowth clawing at their legs, as though it were trying to hold them so the apes could catch them. But Peter resembled his father in more than just looks, and leaped over roots, dodged sapling trees, dragging his wife with him until they made the clearing where the two seater shuttle was waiting. As were the rest of the troupe of apes.

'Oh great!' Trillien said, rolling her eyes. 'Now what would your dad do?' She knew Peter's parents of course, his mother was incredibly brave and caring, and his father was very eccentric and gave the impression of being a bit of an idiot. But she knew it was an act, he was the most brilliant person she had ever met.

Peter pulled his earlobe. 'Well, right about now, he would come up with a brilliant idea. He usually talked his way out of tight spots.'

Trillien looked around nervously at the advancing apes. Her expertise was in exo-zoology, and she knew these proto-humans would not understand a word he said. 'You might be able to discuss the location of the best fruit tree, or the latest threat. Their language is virtually non existent, just modified alarm calls.'

Peter turned and smiled at her. 'And that my love, is how my parents do it. They work as a team. Have you got the ape's vocalisations on your scanner?'

She took out the tablet device and tabbed through the menus. 'Yeah, here they are. But you can't use those to form a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition.'

Peter raised an eyebrow in admiration of his wife's academic learning. 'Don't need to,' he said and pressed "play" on one of the sound files.

A screeching call came out of the tablet device, amplified tenfold. The apes looked at each other, and then around the clearing in alarm, looking for the threat that the lookouts were alerting them to. The alarm call continued on a loop, and the apes ran into the trees, climbing to the safety of the canopy. Peter grabbed his wife around the waist, pulled her close and kissed her on the lips.

As they strolled arm in arm back to the shuttle, a gentle wind whipped up the fallen leaves, and a sound that was not natural to the forest, wheezed and ground itself into the here and now.

* * *

In the premier art gallery on Meta Sigmafolio, it was the opening night of an exhibition of some of the most extraordinary artwork ever displayed. There were all tiers of society mixing together, from the ordinary person in the street, entrepreneurs, CEO's, politicians, and royalty. Prince Oragorn was there of course, as it was his wife's work that was being displayed.

He had met Sarah Jane Lungbarrowmas when she had arrived with her family to view one of the rare bursts of star fire over the coastal area. She had set up an easel and quickly captured the beauty of the celestial display in a watercolour, which he asked if he could purchase. It was her first sale of her work, and she returned regularly to the planet until the prince eventually wooed her and she accepted his offer of marriage.

'Ooh look at the form and the movement implied in this sculpture,' an enthusiastic fan said to his companion. 'It could almost run off the plinth.'

'I am pleased that you enjoy my wife's work,' a deep resonant voice said behind them. They turned and looked in awe at Prince Oragorn behind them.

'Oh, your Royal Highness. It is an honour to meet you and be in your presence,' the man said with reverence.

'Yes, yes,' Oragorn said with a smile. 'But this evening is not about me, it is about my wife.' He called across the gallery. 'Sarah Jane my dear, you have some fans who I think would love to meet you.'

She excused herself from a conversation with a diplomat, and made her way over to her husband. She held her hand out to the fans of her work. 'Hello, thank you for coming. It's always lovely to meet people who have the same appreciation of art as I do.'

The two fans were literally speechless with wonder. They were just ordinary shop workers who had a love of art, and here was a princess talking to them.

'Y, y, your Royal Highness. I don't believe this. I'm actually speaking with the creator of all this beauty,' one of the men said.

'Ooh, you really are a fan,' Sarah Jane laughed. 'And what do I call you?'

'Klavus Ma'am, and this is my friend Bob. I saved up for years and purchased one of your paintings Ma'am.'

'Really?' Which one?'

'Moonrise Over a Frozen Ocean,' Klavus said with a far away look in his eyes. 'Even thinking about it sends a shiver down my spine. The solitude of the magnificent desolation . . .'

'Oh that's beautifully put,' Sarah Jane said. 'That is exactly how I felt when I first saw Woman Wept. It's that feeling I wanted to convey in the painting.' She held Klavus's hands and squeezed them. 'Thank you. I am so glad that someone who understands the painting, owns it.'

She could see that the two fans were overwhelmed with meeting her, and wanted to do something to reward their love of art and their appreciation of her work. 'And tell me Klavus, which is your favourite work?'

Klavus spoke without hesitation. 'Oh, for me it is a sculpture. Mother's Love For Her Child. The mother's face is SO beautiful and so full of love for her baby that it makes me weep.'

Sarah Jane gave him a warm smile. 'I remember that well. My mother with my younger sister Penelope.

'Mine is a portrait,' Bob said. 'The Oncoming Storm. The look you have captured in the eyes. Such resolute defiance, I feel that nothing could stop that person from achieving their goal.'

'That was my father as he was before I was born.'

'A most formidable man by the look of him, Your Highness.'

Oragorn chuckled. 'You have no idea.'

'They are yours,' Sarah Jane said suddenly.

'Excuse me?' Klavus said in confusion.

'The sculpture and the painting, they are yours.'

'But Your Highness, they are worth thousands of gems. We are but lowly merchants,' Bob told her.

'There are art collectors and aficionados here this evening who know the price of each of my works,' she told them. 'And yet I would wager that few of them understood the value as you do. Art should be owned for appreciation, not for an investment.'

'But your Highness, it is too much. We cannot possibly accept such a gift,' Klavus said.

Sarah Jane gave them a teasing smile. A smile she had inherited from her mother, where her tongue poked from between her teeth. 'I'm a princess, and I would be offended if you refuse . . . You wouldn't want to offend a princess would you?'

The two fans were flustered. 'Er, no Ma'am. Of course not Ma'am. Sorry Ma'am. Oh, and thank you Ma'am.'

'There is a condition though,' she added.

The fans gulped nervously. 'Ma'am?'

'I would like your permission to visit my works occasionally and see them being appreciated.'

Oragorn roared with laughter at the look on the dumbfounded fans faces. When they had moved away, the prince leaned forward and kissed his wife lovingly on the lips. 'That was very sweet of you. You are so like your mother. Always caring about the ordinary people.'

Sarah Jane's face had become sad. 'Talking of my mother,' she said, as they heard the sound of the TARDIS elbow its way into the universe outside the gallery.

* * *

Penelope Lungbarrowmas was pinned beneath the body of a large, striped, tiger-looking cat. She could feel its warm breath on her cheek, see the long canine teeth glisten as it licked its lips. She could hear a low, rumbling growl in its throat has it slowly pressed its body down onto hers.

She gave the tomcat a defiant smile. 'Go on then . . . do your worst.'

The cat roared, and she gasped in ecstasy as they both climaxed together.

'Shush!' she giggled. 'You'll wake the kittens.'

'Sorry Love, but I couldn't help myself. You drive me wild,' her catkind husband, Tylar said as he flopped beside her on the bed. She reached over and scratched him behind the ear, which elicited a rumbling purr from deep within his chest.

Penelope smiled at her husband as he lay on his back like a domestic moggy. He was SO cute when he did that. She felt his tail wrap itself around her upper thigh and start to tickle her intimate areas. 'Oooohhhhh,' she sighed as he gently stroked between her legs. He thought she was SO cute when she did that.

As they descended from their post coital high, Tylar's brain started to work again. He had a clinic this morning at The Sisters of Plenitude hospital, and then he had a list of surgery in the afternoon. His wife had an appointment at the Star Drive Propulsion Test Complex, in New Mississippi, where her new design for a warp drive engine was being given a shake down.

She had inherited her father's brains, and had studied at some of the best universities in the galaxy. She made a name for herself as an engineering undergraduate, when her thesis rewrote the rulebook on how a slip stream engine should be built. As a postgraduate, she went on to produce a number of papers on the physics and engineering of warping space-time.

'Did I tell you Joshua is doing the reconstruction surgery on that weird case of transgenic modification today?' he said as they lay there, enjoying the feel of each others body next to them.

'Is that the guy who said he was attacked by robots so that they could turn him into some kind of pig slave?'

'Yeah, that's him. Lazlo I think he said his name was. Anyway, I suppose we had better get up then if we're going to get the kits to the kindergarten on time,' Tylar said.

Penelope groaned. She was enjoying just lying there with her hunk of a husband. 'Yeah. You're right I suppose. C'mon and I'll scrub your fur in the shower.'

After their shower, as they dried each other's bodies, they heard a familiar sound which told Penelope it was time for her to join her family.

* * *

'Doctor, are you there?' The frail woman called out from her bed.

The Doctor, took her searching hand in his and sat on the edge of the bed. 'I'm here my love, I won't leave you.'

The one hundred and nineteen year old Rose Lungbarrowmas turned and smiled at her husband, her face wrinkled in a smile. 'Did you find them? Are they here?'

'Yes Mama,' Andrea said in her French way of speaking. She sat on the other side of the bed and held her hand. 'We are here.'

'Where have all the years gone?' She asked with a melancholy air, as she started remembering her life.

Growing up on the Powell estate with her mum, Jericho Street School when she won the bronze for her gymnastics. There were her best friends Shareen, Keisha, and of course, Mickey. The disastrous fling with Jimmy Stone, and then going steady with Mickey when Jimmy dumped her.

'Run!', that amazing man had said when she thought she was going to die, and how they had run, through all of time and space. Rose remembered a conversation they'd had over a hundred years ago.

['I don't age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you…']

Tears welled in her eyes. 'Oh Doctor, all these years, and you've had to watch me grow old, knowin' this day would come. I want to stay with you Doctor, but I'm so terribly tired.'

He gripped her thumb, and curled her fingers over his thumb, kissing her knuckles before holding her hand to his chest. Tears trickled down his cheeks.

'I…' The words caught in his throat as he stifled a sob. 'I know my love. Just rest, everything will be fine.'

She heard the laughter of their five children growing up in the TARDIS. The birthday parties, the excitement of Christmases long gone. She felt the pride and joy of when her children had married and had families of their own. She had enjoyed visiting them on the different worlds and in the different centuries in which they had chosen to live. And now, at the end of her days, they were all here in the TARDIS, where it had all begun.

['And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life.']

And she'd had a fantastically good life, all because this incredible man had asked her to be his wife. And now, at the end of that fantastically good life, she was able to feel the time line. And for the first time in their long marriage, she understood how the Doctor sensed time. It wasn't linear, as humans saw it, it was chaotic and in flux, full of potential and possibility.

'Doctor?' She breathed, looking off into the distance.

'I'm here Rose,' he said, gently rubbing her hand.

'I can see that beach, I think it's time . . . I love you.'

'I love you Rose, with all my hearts.'

'Quite right too,' she said as a weak smile curled the edges of her lips. She closed her eyes. 'I think I shall have a little nap.'

She gave an almost inaudible sigh, and a golden mist escaped from her lips. The Doctor watched, waiting for her to breath in again, but she never did. He could feel her walking away from him along that beach, turning one last time to smile at him before being enveloped by the golden light.

His chest heaved with sobs as his grief poured out. For one hundred years, she had been there in his head, a comforting, supporting presence, and now he was alone. More alone than he had ever felt in his oh so long life.

'We had the best of times though, didn't we Rose? All the running, the adventures. The places we've been to, the things we've seen, the things we've show our children.'

Uly put a hand on his father's shoulder. 'You stay here with her Dad. We'll take care of everything.' He looked at his siblings, and they nodded in agreement as they wiped the tears from their eyes.

* * *

 **Leadworth, Gloucestershire.**

 **94 TARDIS years later.**

In the Kitchen of the Pond's home, Amy was reading from a history book while Rory unpacked the bags of shopping.

'At the personal intervention of the King, the unnamed Doctor was incarcerated without trial in the Tower of London,' Amy read.

'Okay, but it doesn't have to be him,' Rory reasoned.

Amy read on. 'According to contemporary accounts, two nights later, a magical sphere some twenty feet across, was seen floating away from the tower, bearing the mysterious Doctor aloft.'

'Okay. It's him.'

'There's more . . .' she continued as they put away the groceries.

After lunch, they were cuddled up on the sofa. Rory was watching "Flying Deuces", one of his favourite Laurel and Hardy films, whilst Amy continued to read the history book.

'It's like he's being deliberately ridiculous, trying to attract our attention,' she said, and then looked at the television. 'Are you watching this again?'

'Yeah. I've explained the jokes.'

The doorbell rang, and Amy got off the sofa to answer the door. It was the postman, and he handed over some letters.

Rory looked to the living room door. 'So what are you saying? Do you really think he's back there, trying to wave to us, out of history books?' he asked, completely missing a man wearing a tweed jacket, bowtie and fez waving at the camera before joining Stan and Ollie in their dance.

'Hey, it's the sort of thing he'd do,' she called from the hallway. 'Thanks,' she said to the postman.

'Yeah, but why?' Rory asked her.

'Well, he said he'd be in touch.'

'Two months ago,' Rory reminded her. It had been that long since they had been on honeymoon on a star liner, and the Doctor and Rose had prevented it from crashing into a planet.

'Two months is nothing. He's up to something. I know he is . . . I know him.'

She sorted through the letters, and saw one with a lot of stamps and an overseas post mark. She turned it over and it had a number 3 on it.

Rory saw her frown as she opened it 'What is it? Amy?'

'A date, a time, a map reference . . . I think it's an invitation.'

'From who?'

'It's not signed,' she told him, but she had an idea. 'Look, TARDIS blue.'

Rory stood up and reached the laptop off the dining table. 'What's the map reference? I'll google it.'

'37 degrees 0' 38 North, and 110 degrees 14' 34 West,' she read.

Rory inputted the co-ordinates and found a map that displayed the location. 'The Utah, Arizona border, halfway between Las Vegas and Albuquerque.'

'Vegas? Wow! We could go visit Vegas.'

 **Highway 163,** **Utah** **.**

 **22nd April, 2011** **.**

The San Juan School District bus let Rory and Amy off, with their backpacks.

'Thanks!' Amy called to the driver.

'You're very welcome,' the driver called from inside the bus.

'This is it, yeah?' Amy asked her husband as the bus drove off. 'The right place?'

'Nowhere . . . middle of? Yeah, this is it.'

'Howdy,' a voice said in a Hollywood film accent.

Amy and Rory turned to see a man in a tweed jacket, wearing a bowtie and Stetson hat, lying on the bonnet of a classic American shooting brake.

Rory and Amy looked around, just in case there was anyone else that the stranger may have been saying "howdy" to. There wasn't anyone else though. The only other people around had just left on the bus.

Rory looked at Amy uncertainly, and then addressed the stranger. 'Er, hello. Erm . . . I wonder if you could help us . . .'

The stranger put his arm around Rory's shoulders. 'Well of course Rory, what can I do for you?'

'Well, we received a lett . . .'

'Hang on,' Amy interrupted. 'You just called him Rory.'

The stranger looked puzzled. 'Yes. I know. That's his name. I'd have thought you'd have known that, being married to him and all.'

'No, I mean you know who we are.'

'Of course I do Amy,' he said, putting an arm around her shoulder too. 'You got my invitation then.'

'Your invitation?' Amy asked. 'But who are you, and why would you invite us to the middle of nowhere.'

The stranger suddenly realised that they didn't know who he was. 'Oh, the face! Of course, you haven't seen it yet have you?' He pointed at his face. 'It's me, the Doctor.'

'Doctor who?' Amy asked him.

'No. The Doctor. Not "A" Doctor, "THE" Doctor.'

'The Doctor?' Rory asked.

'Yes,' the stranger said. 'How many The Doctors do you know?'

'Doctor?' Amy said. 'Is that you?'

'Hello.'

'But how can it be you? I mean, look at you.'

'Yes I know. The hairs a bit floppy, and what a chin! But it's still me. Did you see me in the history books?'

'So it really was you,' Amy said. 'But if it's you, where's Rose and Andrea?' Amy asked, looking into the car.

Before the Doctor could explain, someone shot the Stetson off his head.

They turned around to see River Song blowing the smoke from the barrel of a six shooter and holstering it. 'Hello, sweetie.'

'Hello River. Still got a thing about guns I see,' the Doctor said by way of a greeting.

'Who's Annie Oakley?' Rory asked the Doctor.

'Ah, yes. Amy and Rory, River Song. She's an archaeologist.'

'Seriously?' Amy said with an air of disbelief. 'Who's her dad, Indiana Jones?'

'Oh I like her,' River said with a smile.

'Is he really the Doctor?' Amy asked River.

'Oh yes. The one and only. I take it he's pulled the old face change trick on you.'

'Well then. That's the introductions taken care of,' the Doctor said. 'Root beers are on me.' He climbed into the driver's seat and drove them a short distance to a Diner.

'Right then, where are we?' River asked as she flicked through her TARDIS looking diary. 'Have we done Easter Island yet?'

The Doctor leafed through his own diary. 'Er, yes! I've got Easter Island.'

'They worshipped you there. Have you seen the statues?'

'Jim the fish,' the Doctor said, finding another entry.

'Oh! Jim the fish. How is he?'

'Still building his dam.'

Amy and Rory returned from the counter with their bottles of Dr. Pepper. 'Sorry, what are you two doing?' Rory asked.

River explained. 'We're time travellers, so we never meet in the right order. We're syncing our diaries.'

'So, what's happening, then?' Amy asked the Doctor. 'Because you've been up to something. And hey, you never said where Rose and Andrea were.'

'Er . . . They'll be along later. I've been running . . . faster than I've ever run. And I've been running my whole life. Now, it's time for me to stop. And tonight, I'm going to need you all with me,' he told them.

'Okay. We're here. What's up?' Amy asked him.

'A picnic. And then a trip. Somewhere different, somewhere brand new,' he told her.

'Where?'

'Space, 1969' he said mysteriously.

He next drove them to a nearby lake, where he took a wicker picnic basket out of the back of the vehicle, while Rory laid the blanket on the sun baked ground. Amy and River took out the plates and placed the food on them.

They enjoyed the sandwiches, chicken drumsticks and salad, before finishing with cheese and biscuits. They each had a glass of red wine, except for the Doctor, who had the bottle.

'Salud!' he said, holding up the bottle.

'Salud,' they all replied.

'So, when are we going to 1969?' Rory asked as he sipped his wine.

'And since when do you drink wine?' Amy asked him.

'I'm eleven hundred and three. I must've drunk it sometime,' he said, taking a swig from the bottle. He immediately spat it out. 'Oh, why it's horrid. I thought it would taste more like the gums.'

Amy frowned. 'Eleven hundred and three? You were nine hundred and eight the last time we saw you.'

'And you've put on a couple of pounds,' he retorted. 'I wasn't going to mention it.'

'No, but wait,' Amy said, working out the ages in her head. 'That means in two months, you've lived nearly two hundred years.'

'Well yeah,' Rory said as though it was obvious. 'He's got a time machine.

Amy had a sad look on her face as she looked from her husband to the Doctor. 'You're not getting it . . . Humans don't live for two hundred years.'

'Oh,' Rory said as the penny dropped.

'What . . . what happened to Rose and Andrea?' Amy asked the Doctor hesitantly.

'Yes, you're right. Rose passed away a century ago,' he said with a sad smile.

'Oh Doctor. I'm so sorry,' Amy said, wiping a tear from her eye.

'Don't be,' he told her. 'Thanks to the TARDIS she lived to well over a hundred, and we had a long and happy marriage.' He stopped talking and looked off into the distance. 'It might have been a hundred years ago, but I still miss her.'

He then realised that River kept meeting him in the wrong order. 'Did you meet Rose, or hasn't that happened for you yet?'

'Spoilers,' River told him.

'Exactly. You have to keep this to yourself,' he said sternly.

'I know,' she replied.

'But you said Rose and Andrea would be along later,' Rory remembered.

'Ah, yes I did, didn't I,' he admitted. 'Er, I just said that so I didn't upset you.'

Amy noticed a strange figure silhouetted on the skyline. 'Who's that?'

'Hmm? Who's who?' Rory asked.

'Sorry, what?' Amy said in confusion.

'What did you see?' Rory asked.' You said you saw something.'

Amy didn't remember seeing anything. 'No, I didn't.'

The Doctor changed the subject quickly. 'Ah, the moon. Look at it. Of course, you lot did a lot more than look, didn't you? Big, silvery thing in the sky. You couldn't resist it . . . Quite right.'

'The moon landing was in 69. Is that where we're going?' Rory asked.

'No. A lot more happens in 69 than anyone remembers. Human beings. I thought I'd never get done saving you.'

A truck pulled up nearby and an elderly man in jeans and plaid shirt got out. The Doctor waved to him.

'Who's he?' Amy asked.

Before the Doctor could tell her, River spotted something in the lake. 'Oh, my God.'

A figure in a NASA spacesuit was standing up to its knees in the lake.

'You all need to stay back. Whatever happens now, you do not interfere. Clear?' the Doctor told them.

The Doctor went to meet the figure, who had stepped out of the water.

'That's an astronaut. That's an Apollo astronaut in a lake,' Rory said in amazement.

'Yeah,' Amy agreed.

They watched as the astronaut raised its gold plated visor, as the Doctor spoke to it.

'What's he doing?' Amy asked

She got her answer when the astronaut raised its arm and shot the Doctor with an energy weapon.

'DOCTOR!' Amy cried in alarm.

'Amy, stay back!' River said, pulling her back as she tried to run to him.

He was shot again. 'The Doctor said stay back! You have to stay back!' River told her.

Amy struggled to get free. 'No! No! Doctor!'

They saw regeneration energy flow from the Doctor's hands as he turned his head to look at them. 'I'm sorry,' he said quietly.

The astronaut shot again just as the regeneration started properly. This time it was River who called out 'NO! DOCTOR!'

'Doctor, please!' Amy cried as she ran forward and knelt at his side with River and Rory.

River scanned the Doctor with her small tablet device and realised he was dead. She stood up and drew her sidearm.

'River,' Amy called to her. 'River! River? NO.' She knew the Doctor would not want revenge.

But River did want revenge. She emptied her six-shooter at the astronaut, who was walking back into the lake. 'Of course not.'

Amy was in shock. 'River, he can't be dead. This isn't possible.'

River returned to the lifeless body of the Doctor. 'Whatever that was, it killed him in the middle of his regeneration cycle. His body was already dead. He didn't make it to the next one.'

'Maybe he's a clone or a duplicate or something,' Amy said, clutching at straws of hope.

The old man from the truck approached, with a petrol can. 'I believe I can save you some time. That most certainly is the Doctor. And he is most certainly dead. He said you'd need this.'

Rory looked at the jerry can. 'Gasoline?'

River understood. 'A Time Lord's body is a miracle. Even a dead one. There are whole empires out there who'd rip this world apart for just one cell. We can't leave him here. Or anywhere.'

Amy shook the Doctor's shoulders. 'Wake up. Come on, wake up, you stupid, bloody idiot. What do we do, Rory?'

'We're his friends,' River said. 'We do what the Doctor's friends always do . . . As we're told.'

Rory looked around. 'There's a boat. If we're going to do this, let's do it properly.'

So, as the sun set, they set light to the boat and pushed it out into the lake, giving the Doctor a Viking funeral.

'Who are you? Why did you come?' River asked the old man.

'The same reason as you,' he told her as he held out his blue invitation. 'Doctor Song . . . Amy . . . Rory. I'm Canton Everett Delaware the third. I won't be seeing you again, but . . . you'll be seeing me.'

He turned around and walked back to his truck.

'Four,' River said suddenly.

'Sorry, what?' Rory asked.

'The Doctor numbered the envelopes,' she realised. 'Come on, let's get back to the Diner. I need a drink.'

As River drove the shooting brake back to the Diner, they sat in a shocked, depressed silence. When they arrived, they went inside as River reviewed what they knew. 'You got 3, I was 2, Mister Delaware was 4.'

'So?' Rory asked her.

'So, where's 1?'

'What, you think he invited someone else?'

'Well, he must have. He planned all of this, to the last detail.'

Amy stopped and leaned on the back of one of the seats. 'Will you two shut up? It doesn't matter.'

'He was up to something,' River continued.

'He's dead,' Amy whispered.

But River was still thinking out loud. 'Space, 1969. What did he mean?'

'You're still talking, but it doesn't matter,' Amy told them.

'Hey, it mattered to him,' Rory said.

'So it matters to us,' River agreed.

'He's dead.'

'But he still needs us. I know. Amy,' River said sympathetically. 'I KNOW. But right now we have to focus.'

Rory was looking at a table at the back of the Diner 'Look.'

There was another blue envelope on a table near the back.

Rory went to the bar tender. 'Excuse me, who was sitting over there?'

'Some couple with a kid,' he told him.

'The Doctor knew he was going to his death, so he sent out messages,' River said. 'When you know it's the end, who do you call?'

'Er, your friends. People you trust,' Rory reasoned.

'Number 1. Who did The Doctor trust the most?' River asked.

'Amy! Rory! River! Oh this is brilliant! Did you get an invite too,' Rose asked, as she came out of the restroom, parked the pushchair and hugged the group.

'Oh my God! Rose, it's you. You're alive,' Amy cried.

Rose laughed. 'Well I was the last time I looked.'

Rory looked confused. 'But if you're here . . . then that means . . .'

The Doctor came out of the restroom wearing his usual pinstripe suit, white Converse, sticky up hair, and a surprised smile. They could see the TARDIS behind him through the open door.

River gave him an icy look. 'This is cold. Even by your standards, this is cold.'

'Or hello, as people used to say,' the Doctor replied.

'Doctor?' Amy asked, unsure if he could actually be there.

'I just popped out to get my special straw. It adds more fizz.'

'And Andrea needed the toilet,' Rose told the stunned group.

'You're okay. How can you be okay?'

'Hey, of course I'm okay. I'm always okay. Hello, Rory. And Doctor River Song. Oh, you bad, bad girl. What trouble have you got for me this time?'

River slapped him hard across the cheek.

'OI!' Rose said, standing in front of her husband to protect him from this woman who, being honest, she didn't trust, and didn't particularly like.

'Okay,' he said, rubbing his cheek. 'I'm assuming that's for something I haven't done yet.'

'Yes, it is,' River said angrily.

'Good. Looking forward to it.' He turned to Rose. 'Why is it since I met you, all women want to do is slap my face.'

Rose rubbed his cheek and smiled. 'I dunno. You've just got one of those faces I suppose.'

'I don't understand. How can you be here?' Rory asked him.

'We were invited. Date, map reference. Same as you lot, I assume, otherwise it's a hell of a coincidence.'

Amy turned to River. 'River, what's going on?'

River had an idea of what was happening. She'd been there, done that and got the T-shirt. 'Amy, ask him what age he is.'

'That's a bit personal,' Rose said, still angry that she'd slapped her husband.

'Tell her. Tell her what age you are,' River insisted.

'Nine hundred and nine,' he told them.

'Yeah, but you said you were . . . So where does that leave us, huh? Jim the fish? Have we done Jim the fish yet?' River asked.

'Who's Jim the fish?' the Doctor and Rose asked in confusion.

'I don't understand,' Amy said.

'Yeah, you do,' Rory told her.

'I don't!' the Doctor told them.

'That's a relief,' Rose said. 'I thought I'd missed sommat then.'

'What are we all doing here?' the Doctor asked.

'We've been recruited,' River told him. 'Something to do with space 1969, and a man called Canton Everett Delaware the third.'

'Recruited by WHO?' Rose asked.

'Someone who trusts the Doctor more than anybody else in the universe,' River announced.

The Doctor frowned. 'And who's that?'

River smiled. 'Spoilers.'

 **The End**


End file.
